The So Unknown
by SemperScriptorum0622
Summary: Rachel never had any reason to question her existence until one day she does. After discovering life-changing news about the circumstances of her birth, fate turns Rachel to a former friend in the midst of an identity crisis of her own. Together Rachel and Quinn learn that sometimes you have to figure somebody else out before you can figure out yourself. Season 3. Eventual Faberry.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey all! So, I am back. I know it didn't take long but I missed writing + I am on summer break right now so here we are. This is a little something that has been sitting in my head for some time now. It is season three based and basically just a little take on how season three could have gone if it wasn't such a mess in real life. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter 1** :

Quinn Fabray slams her locker door shut, determined to ignore the stares that she can feel being shot at her from every direction.

The former Cheerio and William McKinley Queen Bee had all but disappeared off the face of the planet this summer.

She told the least amount of people that she could get away with that she would be spending the summer holiday with her sister and her husband on the east coast while her mother was on a mixer cruise for divorcees in the Caribbean.

Seriously though, who wants to brag about their mother going out to sea to try to get laid by a bunch of middle-aged men?

Quinn had spent her summer shucking fresh oysters for a restaurant on the bay alongside rich boys in pastel shorts whose parents actually wanted them to understand the value of a dollar. When that restaurant had closed up shop for the winter, Quinn returned to Ohio where she showed up to her first day of her senior year with her blonde hair chopped off and dyed pink and the tattoo of an obscure celebrity on the small of her back.

Quinn understands that her postpartum freak out is delayed, but in that first year after she had given her daughter up for adoption, she refused to give herself the opportunity to consider the implications of her actions.

She spent her junior year trying to pretend that it never happened, trying to pretend that Beth didn't exist.

Pretending. That was all she was ever doing.

It had taken Quinn a full year to realize that she was no longer the pretty, popular cheerleader she had been before her pregnancy. It had taken her even longer to face the fact that maybe she had never been that girl at all.

Inevitably, the protective bubble that she had placed around herself burst. The fall had been hard and painful. In hindsight, she knows that she should have expected all of these feelings to catch up to her, but anticipation has never been her strong suite.

This is why Quinn decides to kick off her senior year of high school standing outside of the rear entrance smoking a cigarette in the vicinity of a girl wearing a black hoodie and cargo pants despite the fact that the temperatures have been hovering in the upper seventies all week.

Smoking is a habit that she had forced herself to pick up. She does not particularly enjoy it. She had started in the beginning of the summer and still, the smoke hung in her chest like a brick and made her cough every time she lit up.

But Quinn was looking for a way to rebel and this seemed like the perfect start. Besides, one of the fisherman for the restaurant that she had worked for over the summer had the hots for her and even though he was in his forties and Quinn would never entertain the idea of actually getting with him, she had left him dangling because he would always bum her a smoke whenever she asked.

Quinn sucks her cigarette down to its filter in silence. She says nothing, only observes from a distance as students shuttle inside of the school in their back-to-school outfits looking so happy, so cheerful, so blissfully unaware…

The whole scene made Quinn sick to her stomach.

In fact, she is just starting to think that there is nobody in this entire town who could actually understand her when the girl in all black approaches her as she is stamping out her cigarette with the toe of her boot and asks her to skip first period to hang out with a group of friends whom she refers to as _Skanks._

Quinn is not naïve. She knows who The Skanks are and what their reputation throughout town is. The thing is, she doesn't care. In her eyes, skipping not only first period, but all of her morning classes to pass around a stale forty ounce that one of the girls had stolen from her foster father's fridge is much more worthwhile than going to AP Biology…

Quinn does not so much as step inside of her school until right before lunch.

The first person that she sees who she recognizes is Rachel Berry which seems like a bad way to start her year.

Rachel is at her locker. She is wearing an outfit that Quinn can't tell would suit an infant or an elderly person better and she is meticulously taping pictures of her and Finn that they had taken over the summer on the inside of her locker.

Rachel hasn't even spoken to Quinn yet and she is already starting to irritate the blonde.

When the young singer finally does spot the ex-cheerleader, her brows furrow in the center in a way that is all too familiar to Quinn, who knows enough to understand that she is about to get an earful.

"You missed glee rehearsal yesterday."

"How did you have glee rehearsal yesterday?" Quinn scoffs. "Today is the first day of school."

"We had auditions yesterday, Quinn!" Rachel huffs, placing her hands against her hips. "And in case you were wondering, they didn't go very well. We really could have used you."

"Relax, will you? I was in Rhode Island at my sister's all summer. I just got back last night."

This is a lie. Quinn has been back in Lima for over a week. Still, lying seems like a better option than the alternative: having to listen to Rachel Berry preach to her about team loyalty and dedication or whatever.

Quinn needs another cigarette already.

"You weren't in AP Biology this morning either," Rachel pushes. "I know you're registered for that class. The teacher called your name for attendance three times and you never showed up."

Quinn rolls her eyes. "Thanks for the concern _mom_ , but I'm dropping AP Bio. I'm dropping all of my AP's."

"What about Yale?" Rachel asks, folding her arms over her chest.

Quinn snorts at her. She doesn't need Rachel Berry's concern. She doesn't need anybody's concern.

"What about it?"

Now it is Rachel's turn to roll her eyes. "You know Quinn, this really isn't a good look for you."

Quinn cocks her head and transforms her face into a sarcastic expression of hurt as she wraps a finger around a short lock of pink hair and twists.

"You don't like it?" she asks the brunette. "I dyed it myself."

"I'm not talking about your hair, I'm talking about your delinquency," Rachel clarifies sharply. "We have glee this afternoon after school. I am enforcing a strict attendance policy this year. It is our last chance to win Nationals and we _will_ win Nationals. You better be there."

The small girl slams her locker shut and shoulders past Quinn. Unfortunately, the blonde has to travel in the same direction as Rachel in order to get to the smoke pit outside.

She waits until Rachel is a safe distance ahead of her, just in case the brunette decides that she is not finished with her lecture, and then steps into the crowd.

She is craving a cigarette, wondering if the Skanks are still underneath the bleachers waiting for her. In fact, she is so busy inside of her own head that she doesn't even notice when Rachel skids to a halt so suddenly that Quinn walks straight into her back.

"What the hell, Berry?" Quinn snaps at the girl, giving her a little shove for added measure.

But the brunette does not appear to notice. She says nothing to Quinn which is unusual because Quinn usually couldn't pay Rachel to shut up whenever she was around her.

"Hello, Earth to Berry." Quinn walks around Rachel and snaps her fingers in front of her face, but Rachel doesn't so much as blink. Instead, she stares straight ahead with a bewildered, almost frightened look on her face.

"Did you do drugs before you came to school today?" Quinn asks her, feeling irrationally irritated by Rachel's lack of a response. "What are you looking at, Berry? Answer me!"

Rachel still does not say anything but this time, she at least acknowledges Quinn.

She grabs the blonde by her shoulders and spins her around so that she is looking in the same direction as Rachel.

Quinn's eyes adjust to the distance. It takes her a moment to scan through the crowd in order to spot what has stunned Rachel so senseless, but then Quinn does see it and she realizes that she is going to need something much stronger than a cigarette.

The woman in front of them is short like Rachel but the implication of her presence is enough to make up for that fact.

She is wearing a sleek-fitting, purple dress and tall heels that echo like gun fire. She doesn't notice Quinn and Rachel staring at her but that is only because she looks determined, like she is on a mission and is resolved to complete it.

There is no mistaking Shelby Corcoran, though. Quinn couldn't forget that woman if she tried.

And she _has_ tried.

Before Shelby can notice the two girls, she makes a sharp cut down the opposite hallway away from Rachel and Quinn.

She disappears from the sight, but it is not far enough. In Quinn's humble opinion, Shelby could live on the moon and it still wouldn't be far enough away from her.

Slowly, Quinn turns towards Rachel with her mouth agape. The brunette is wearing an expression identical to how Quinn feels.

The blonde knows that she is trying to convey a new reputation for being a brute and a badass, but for a moment even she forgets herself as she swallows dumbly at Rachel like a fish out of water, not even bothering to hide her shock.

"What the hell is she doing here?"

* * *

Rachel still attends all of her afternoon classes, of course she does, but now that she has seen Shelby wandering the hallways, she can hardly concentrate, afraid that the next turn she makes will be straight into her estranged mother.

Rachel has not so much as considered the woman in some time.

It had taken her months to get to a place where she could turn off her memories of the last time she had met Shelby Corcoran. That didn't mean that she would ever forget how the woman had entered her life only to nearly ruin it.

While Shelby had been on Rachel's mind quite often after that fateful trip to Regionals her sophomore year, months of therapy had turned her into an afterthought.

She has no idea where Shelby had disappeared to for the last year and a half, or why she decided to pick now of all times to return. All she knows is that she doesn't like it.

Rachel spends the majority of her afternoon thinking about Shelby and what she might be up to by being here, but her time not thinking about Shelby is spent thinking about Quinn.

Rachel hasn't seen Quinn since the two of them learned of Shelby's return in the most unceremonious way possible.

She isn't really expecting to. Rumor is already circulating throughout the school that Quinn had spent her morning with a notorious gang of girls who dub themselves _Skanks_ of all things.

It is hardly a good look for a girl with so much to lose, but Rachel knows that it is hardly any business of hers. Out of all the people Quinn could turn to, Rachel knows that she is likely last on the blonde's list.

Rachel is surprised when she walks into the choir room after school and actually sees Quinn waiting in her usual seat.

She knows that she had warned Quinn to come, but something seems different with the blonde and nothing anybody says seems to hold any merit with her anymore.

"You came," Rachel states simply. It is still early enough that they are the only two in the room. Despite the ample space, Rachel chooses to sit in the vacant seat directly next to Quinn, who looks upset by this arrangement.

"Don't get too excited," Quinn warns dryly. "I figured that if Shelby is back it probably has something to do with this stupid club. I'm only here to figure out her intentions."

"Her intentions are probably to have a job."

"Stop pretending like you're so naïve," Quinn rolls her eyes. "You know as well as I do that she wouldn't take a job at this school without it having something to do with us."

Rachel sucks her bottom lip inward and bites down hard.

She has been trying not to think like that. She has been trying desperately to give Shelby the benefit of the doubt ever since she first saw her this morning, but she realizes now that she hadn't spent her entire afternoon thinking about Shelby because she truly believed that the woman was only here for a mere job…

Quinn watches Rachel's face sink with a satisfied look on her face.

It is nice to see Rachel show her actual feelings for a change and portray something other than that carefree, happy-go-lucky kid she always only pretends to be.

"She's here to flaunt Beth in both of our faces, Rachel," Quinn continues, hammering the nail in the coffin of Rachel's optimism. "And I for one am not going to be caught off guard by it."

Rachel's need to respond is cut short as the choir room door flies opens and Finn stumbles through with a sense of urgency.

Rachel shrinks away from her boyfriend before she can tell herself not to.

She hasn't had the opportunity to tell Finn that she had seen Shelby yet. She is taking all AP classes this year in order to boost her NYADA application and Finn could hardly keep up with that. Rachel knows that the two will rarely cross paths during the school day this year unless it is during lunch or glee.

"I just had your mom as a substitute in my Spanish class," he tells Rachel breathlessly, sliding into the one empty chair besides her.

"Don't call her that," Rachel sighs, weaving her fingers through her thick hair.

"Did you know that she was coming back?" Finn pushes. He seems oblivious to the tone in Rachel's voice, one which seems to indicate just how little she wants to talk about this.

Quinn almost feels sorry for the girl. Away for the entire summer, she had almost forgotten what it was like having to put up with Finn.

Almost.

"Don't you think that I would have told you if I did?" Rachel snaps and Finn reels backwards if only to avoid having his head chewed off any further.

Quinn feels her eyes widen, almost uncomfortable as she watches the normally composed girl lose her nerve. It is now clear that this situation is upsetting Rachel much more than she had been initially letting on.

Rachel huffs away from her slack-jawed boyfriend. She does not want anymore reasons to be angry today. Today was supposed to be the first day of the best year of her life. She isn't about to let Shelby take that away from her too.

Quinn feels her forehead slant with concern towards the brunette's fading composure. The worst part is that she knows that Rachel sees the way that she is looking at her before she can clear it off her face entirely.

The brunette catches the entire thing.

* * *

The choir room fills gradually.

Everybody can tell that there is something wrong because Rachel is sitting front and center, yet the room is completely silent.

They have so much to anticipate for their upcoming senior year that everybody had been expecting her to speak for hours. Usually, they were begging for her to stop. Today, they find themselves actually uncomfortable in her silence.

When Mr. Schuester walks into the classroom, he is staring at Rachel, Quinn, and Puck with a look on his face that allows the girls to realize that he is aware of Shelby's return too.

For the first time, the two of them wonder if Puck knows.

Of course, Puck had attended less class today than even Quinn and his face looks relaxed and carefree leading both Rachel and Quinn to silently conclude that he has no idea.

"Listen up you guys," Mr. Schuester silences the class with a sigh that projects a worry that transcends across the room. "I know that our open auditions yesterday didn't exactly go as planned."

"One person showed up," somebody snaps from the back. Judging by the tone the voice is easily pinpointed back to Santana. "And she was terrible."

"Well, she wasn't particularly happy about being rejected by you guys yesterday," Mr. Schuester explains, shaking his head gently. "And as it turns out, her father has a lot of money; a lot of money that he has dedicated to funding a second glee club at this school with his daughter as the lead."

A series of giggles erupts around the announcement. The only people who are not laughing are Rachel and Quinn, who glance at each other uncertainly, neither particularly liking where this is heading.

"I wouldn't be too concerned about a one-person glee club headed by Sugar Motta, Mr. Schue."

"The thing is Kurt; this isn't just any glee club. Mr. Motta also fronted the funding for an outside choir director." He pauses. The way he glances at Puck and then Quinn and then Rachel tells the two girls what he is going to say even before he says it. "And I think that we all know not to underestimate Shelby Corcoran."

A collective gasp goes up inside of the classroom. Rachel and Quinn feel themselves flush. Both girls are remarkably aware of just how many eyes have turned to them.

"Wait, Ms. Corcoran is back?" Puck swallows from somewhere in the back.

Quinn closes her eyes. She realizes too late that the first thing she should have done after seeing Shelby was to find Puck. She had been selfish, absorbed in her own way. She knew exactly what it felt like to have to find out about Shelby's return without warning and she had still let it happen to Puck.

If this is only her first day of school, she doesn't want to know what the rest of the school year has in store for her.

"She is," Mr. Schuester confirms with a nod. The room tenses and quiets as the last shred of hope is broken, leaving everybody equally upset and equally confused.

"But that doesn't make any sense," Finn insists, his tone low and drawling. Usually, he always sounds this confused, but this particular instance is unique in that the rest of the glee club is confused right alongside him. "Ms. Corcoran is back just to build her own glee club to compete against us? Why would she do that?"

Finn's question makes something inside of Rachel burst. The chord has been tensing dangerously all day and now, she finally feels it snap.

It is the realization that Quinn has been trying to force her to confront all day.

Shelby isn't here because she needed a job. She isn't here to introduce Puck and Quinn to their daughter or even to apologize to Rachel for the abysmal way she had treated her before. Instead, she is only here because some rich stranger was paying her to be.

Rachel tells herself that she hadn't been expecting any of this to be about her, but that terrible, self-destructive force that continues to hold onto hope whenever it comes to Shelby can't help but feel disappointed anyway.

It feels like she is being stabbed in a still-healing wound. She is standing on the stage, spilling her guts and Shelby is the one holding the knife.

Her chair is scraping against the linoleum floor before she even realizes that she is getting up. The silence that falls throughout the choir room is as deafening as it has ever been as Rachel storms out of the choir room and into the hallway.

She isn't exactly sure where to find Shelby, but she has an idea.

She may not know her mother very well, but she _does_ know Shelby Corcoran and if that woman is in charge of a glee club, chances are they are rehearsing.

There is only one other room with a piano in the entire school and that is in the auditorium. Rachel enters it without warning.

Sure enough, there is Shelby.

The older woman is sitting behind the piano with that awful girl Sugar – who Rachel is certain not even Shelby could turn into a star – standing beside her doing vocal warmups with the grace of a feral cat.

The notion of Shelby's impending failure feels somehow satisfying to Rachel.

"You could have at least given me some warning!"

Livid, Rachel makes her presence known early, screaming at Shelby as she storms down the aisle towards the stage.

She has prepared roughly a thousand speeches for Shelby throughout the course of her day, yet somehow this is what comes out and Rachel realizes that as prepared as she thought she had been to face her mother, there are just no words to describe just how badly Shelby had hurt her.

Staring at Shelby now, Rachel cannot believe that there had ever been a time that she had wanted this woman more involved in her life. Now, as far as Rachel is concerned Shelby can drop off the face of the Earth and it wouldn't make any difference to her.

Rachel's surprise entrance clearly startles Shelby. The older woman's hand slips against the keyboard creating a painfully sharp tone.

Ironically, it is the only note that Sugar Motta actually manages to hit.

Shelby's head turns. She sees her estranged daughter for the first time in over a year and her face falls. Rachel reads her expression. It is not one that might signify an apology for everything that she has put Rachel through. Instead, she only looks sorry that she had gotten caught.

"Rachel…" Shelby starts, but Rachel doesn't even acknowledge it.

"Why do you always have to keep popping up just when things are finally starting to go well in my life?"

"Wow, looks like somebody had a bad first day."

Rachel hears the drawn-out, nasally voice of Sugar Motta and she almost feels angry enough to hit the girl.

"You need to leave," Rachel glares at Sugar. "Now!"

Rachel is certain that nobody has ever spoken to Sugar Motta like this before. She is certain that the girl has never so much as heard the word _no._

But despite being ready and willing to deliver an unsuspecting insult and blame it on a questionable diagnosis of Asperger's, Sugar does not seem prepared to take what she often dishes out. The girl scurries off the stage without so much as a word.

As Sugar leaves, Rachel climbs the steps onto the stage and faces Shelby who is sitting stiff and pale on the piano bench.

Neither of them says a word until they finally hear the auditorium doors slam shut behind Sugar.

"Why are you here, Shelby?" Rachel finally breathes through the silence. "I have a boyfriend who I love, we _are_ going to win Nationals this year, and I have already started my application to NYADA. Do you have like a radar or something inside of your brain that goes off whenever I start feeling a semblance of stability? Is that what this is? Because you were so messed up at my age, you can't let me live my life?"

Rachel hadn't intended to project so many of her feelings to Shelby. She never wanted the woman to see just how badly she had hurt her. She is experienced enough however, to understand that when it comes to Shelby, intentions and reality hardly go hand-in-hand.

When Shelby stands up from the piano bench, her arms crossed over her chest and a look on her face like she hadn't even heard Rachel, the younger girl feels her stomach drop and clench.

"Can I explain myself?" Shelby asks with a tone that makes Rachel want to throttle her. "Or did you just come here to yell at me?"

Rachel narrows her eyes at her mother's accusation, but she remains silent, allowing Shelby to continue.

"I was offered a job with good pay and I accepted it," Shelby states pointedly. "That's it, Rachel. I do not have any ulterior motives against you or Quinn or Puck. I just have a child to feed."

Rachel crosses her own arms over her chest and glowers, trying not to consider just how much she resembles the woman standing in front of her with this expression on her face.

She wonders if Shelby even thinks about the words that come out of her mouth before she says them. More importantly, she wonders if she thinks about just how much those words hurt a girl who is half a piece of her own body.

Is Rachel really supposed to just accept that Shelby took this job like she would any other without even considering the implications? Then again, judging by Shelby's track record of not considering her at all, Rachel realizes that this is likely.

"I'm sorry that I didn't have the opportunity to reach out and find you before you found me first," Shelby continues when Rachel says nothing. "That was not my intention."

"It has been a full school day and still I am the one who had to find you!" Rachel shouts, ignoring the tears that she can feel welling up inside of her eyes. She is exhausted from all of Shelby's excuses. Rachel has been fighting to justify them ever since the woman left Lima. Now, she is finding that she is out of reasons and energy to keep doing so. "My boyfriend had you as a substitute in his class today, Shelby! Do you have any idea how humiliating that is? A phone call might have been nice. Hell, I would have even taken a text. You have no idea what it felt like having to find out that you are back by seeing you in the hallway by chance! The worst part is that you don't even seem to care."

"Rachel-"

"No!" Rachel cuts her off sharply. She has spent the entire day convincing herself that she would not cry in front of Shelby when she inevitably confronted the woman. Now, the tears are flowing freely down her cheeks and she hardly even cares. "I don't want to hear it anymore. You have no right to just pop into and out of my life at your convenience. You don't get to uproot my life again. I won't let you. So, I'll make you a deal. I'll stay as far away from you as I can and all I ask in return is that you return the favor. As for your little glee club, don't expect it to last long. The New Directions are winning Nationals this year with or without your interference."

Before Shelby can even think up a response, Rachel performs a sharp about-face and storms behind the stage towards the back exit.

Her vision is so clouded with anger that she doesn't even realize that somebody has been hiding behind the thick, maroon curtain this entire time until she runs right into her.

Rachel sees a mass of blonde hair and then feels a terrible pain in her backside that matches the pain in her pride.

She hits the floor with a grunt. Her cheeks are flaming with embarrassment as she glances tentatively up at Quinn Fabray, expecting to get hell for her confrontation with her mother.

Much to Rachel's surprise however, the blonde only offers Rachel a hand to help lift her back to her feet.

"What are you doing here?" Rachel asks as she wipes the grime from the filthy auditorium floor off her skirt.

"Do you really think that I was going to miss that?" Quinn asks, and when she smiles at Rachel it almost looks genuine. "That was the closest I have ever come to actually liking you, Berry."

Rachel knows that coming from Quinn Fabray, she should take this as a compliment. Instead, she only feels more embarrassed.

"I've never yelled at anybody like that before," Rachel admits. "When I saw you this morning, I thought you were crazy because you were hanging out with the Skanks and you dyed your hair pink and got that stupid tattoo… Now I think I understand why you did it."

Quinn nods solemnly at the brunette. She doesn't say anything but the tone in her gesture says everything that Rachel wishes her own mother would have the guts or at least the decency to say to her.

Quinn goes so long without speaking that Rachel thinks she isn't going to say anything. The brunette isn't in the mood to play games or wallow in the awkwardness of this situation, so she moves to push past Quinn.

She has no idea where she is going to go.

She can hardly go back to glee after her abrupt exit. She could go home, but her dads would be able to sense that something was wrong and she was a horrible liar when it came to her parents. She would inevitably have to tell them that Shelby was back, and she isn't sure that she is ready to do that quite yet.

"Hey Rachel," Quinn calls back to the brunette before she can disappear into the hallway. "You don't have to always pretend like you're okay, you know."

Rachel purses her lips, but nods.

"For the record Quinn, neither do you," Rachel offers, looking up to meet Quinn's inquisitive, hazel eyes.

Quinn stares at Rachel for a long time, truly considering the brunette for what feels like the first time.

She had taken Rachel Berry's presence in the hallway earlier as a bad omen. She started her school year thinking that the only people in this town who could understand her pain were The Skanks. Now, she realizes that those girls didn't know her at all. Much to her surprise, Quinn is starting to realize that that designation belongs to the tiny brunette standing in front of her.

Before Quinn could do something totally embarrassing like tell Rachel this, the brunette pushes through the heavy stage door and into the hallway without so much as a goodbye.

She leaves Quinn alone in the darkened stage vestibule to wonder how many more surprises Rachel Berry has in store for her this year, and whether or not her self-declared mortal enemy might just turn out to be the ally that she has been looking for this entire time.


	2. Chapter 2

**I just wanted to thank everybody quick for all of the love! Like a lot of you who I heard from this story was kind of birthed from the fact that I hated the idea that Rachel and Shelby were able to fix everything that was wrong between them by saying like three words to each other and singing a song. It seemed like a waste of a plot and actors with so much depth. Also, I hated that they played everything with Quinn off like a joke when it was clear that she was hurting which seemed unfair so this is me taking a whack at it.**

 **There will be some clarity between Rachel and Shelby as well as a little more insight to the meat and potatoes of this story in the next chapter so for now, I thank you for your patience. I am leaving for vacation on Sunday so I am hoping to have at least one more chapter headed your way before then.**

 **Until next time, thanks again to everybody here. Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2** :

It has been a full week since Rachel had confronted Shelby on that dreadful first day of school and admittedly, not much has changed since.

Rachel has kept her distance from Shelby as promised. In turn, Shelby has respected her request to do the same.

Neither of them has so much as acknowledged the other beyond a head nod or a quick diversion of the eyes on the rare occasion that they did pass each other in the hallway.

Rachel had reluctantly informed her fathers about Shelby's return on the evening after her first day of school as the family sat around the dinner table.

She hardly wanted to have that conversation, but her fathers had inevitably asked Rachel how her first day of school went and the truth was written too plainly on her face for them not to pry.

Rachel is the type of girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and when her Daddy had made her favorite meal for dinner without her so much as taking a bite, both of her parents realized that something was wrong. They pestered her for information until she had no choice but to come clean.

Her fathers were upset, of course.

They were unhappy that Shelby had reappeared without warning, violating their legal contract for the second time in as many years, but the thing that really bothered them was the way that Shelby's presence seemed to be affecting their little girl.

The first time that Rachel and Shelby met had nearly broken Rachel and nobody could really blame the young girl for it. She hadn't asked for that, it had just happened. There was no segue, no transition, Shelby had simply been there one day and gone the next. She had left the pain behind with none of the responsibility to clean up after it.

To add insult to injury, despite the previous belief that a glee club comprised only of Sugar Motta would self-destruct on its own, Shelby was actually getting people to sign up in droves.

She had snagged a couple of Cheerios by advertising the club as a dance troupe and choir rather than a glee club. Apparently, the majority of the Cheerios weren't intelligent enough to realize that the two were the exact same thing.

The only thing that pissed Rachel off more than seeing Shelby's numbers go up was the fact that she hadn't thought of doing that first.

Meanwhile, tensions were running high inside of her own glee club.

The majority of that is her own fault. She is being even more overbearing than usual, stricter, more unbearable.

The thing is that lately, the more people tell her to calm down, the angrier Rachel gets.

Rachel blames everything on Shelby but she can't very well tell her teammates that. Instead, every glee rehearsal proves to be worse than the last one, increasing the threat of a schism as people continue to threaten to defect to the Troubletones should Rachel continue to act irrationally.

Rachel tries to cope by throwing all of her spare time into her classes and extracurriculars in an effort to avoid thinking about her estranged mother.

Before too long, she has not only glee, but Mock United Nations club as well, not to mention the lead in the school's production of West Side Story.

She tells everybody who warns her that she is going to burn herself out before the end of the month that she has to do this for her NYADA applications. The truth is that if she keeps busy enough, she will be too busy thinking about how tired she is to think about Shelby.

And Rachel really, _really_ does not want to think about Shelby.

Rachel walks into William McKinley on the Monday of her second week of senior year determined to tilt her world back onto its proper axis.

Unfortunately, she finds that things are off to an abnormal start straight away when she walks into AP Biology only to find Quinn Fabray sitting in the bench chair directly next to the one that she occupies.

The blonde girl is back to being just that: blonde. Gone is any evidence of the pink that had been in her teased bob the last time Rachel had seen her on Friday afternoon. Instead, Quinn's features are soft and gentle. They are perfectly highlighted by a pale blue dress that hardly suits her personality.

She looks like she just stepped out of a nunnery and Rachel is forced to do a double take wondering if maybe Quinn was an evil twin and her good twin was now trying to spare her from falling down the path of self-destruction.

"I thought you dropped this class." Rachel swallows her surprise as she drops down into the empty seat next to Quinn.

"Yeah well, things change," Quinn tells her and while her features might be soft, her tone most certainly is not. So much for that evil twin theory. This was the same old Quinn Fabray that Rachel has always known.

"Like?" Rachel prompts but Quinn only shrugs.

"Maybe you should ask your mom," Quinn spits and it feels like a punch.

It is a low blow. Both Rachel and Quinn know this. Rachel thought that maybe her and Quinn had come to an unspoken truce last week in the common ground of being impossibly hurt by Shelby Corcoran, but now Rachel just wonders if that was wishful thinking.

The brunette feels herself retract and seethe. So much for this being the start of a brand-new week for her.

"She's not my mom," Rachel hisses, her voice projecting her offense despite her determination to hide it.

"Yes, she is," Quinn insists. She sounds as determined to make herself believe this as she is determined to make Rachel believe it. Quinn needs Rachel as an ally. The brunette might not know it yet, but they were going to need each other if they were going to get through this and that could never work if the two couldn't even see eye-to-eye.

"Why are you pushing this?" Rachel finally asks.

"Because if Shelby isn't your mom then that means that I'm not Beth's so how about you get over yourself for a second and think about somebody else for a change."

Rachel just manages to suppress a snort of distaste. She thinks that it is rich that Quinn of all people is telling her to stop being selfish, but it is neither the time or place for that conversation.

"You talked to Shelby," Rachel interprets Quinn's attitude and narrows it down to the source.

She tries not to feel jealous. She should be used to the fact that Shelby has reached out to everybody in this school except for her by now, but she still can't help but to feel hurt.

"Yes, I did, and she was pretty adamant about what I have to do in order to get Beth back."

Quinn gestures to her freshly blonde hair and light blue dress and all of a sudden, the change of appearance makes perfect sense to Rachel.

"I highly doubt that Shelby would be willing to just hand Beth over to you," Rachel rolls her eyes. She really doesn't want to be the one to ruin Quinn's hopes and dreams, but the blonde seems thoroughly convinced that coming to school today in a nice outfit would secure custody of her daughter by nightfall, and Rachel knows Shelby well enough not to hope for anything when it comes to her.

"Why not?" Quinn snorts, crossing her arms over her chest. "She didn't seem to care very much when she just handed you over."

The silence that follows is almost painful.

For a moment, Rachel is so shocked by Quinn's gall that she can't even immediately process the cruelty of her words. Even Quinn seems to be surprised by what had just come out of her mouth.

"You know Quinn," Rachel says after a moment when it becomes clear that Quinn has no intention of apologizing or even trying to correct herself. "It's going to take a lot more than a box of hair dye and a J. Crew dress to convince people that you're a good person. Anybody with two eyes and half a brain can see straight through your act."

"You know what Berry? Maybe you should mind your own business for a change."

"Whatever," Rachel rolls her eyes. She doesn't have the energy to ping-pong back and forth with Quinn Fabray. This is supposed to be her week. "You're the one who sat down next to me."

"Well I didn't know that it was your stupid freaking seat," Quinn shoots back, peeling herself back from her chair.

"Where are you going?" Rachel sighs, watching Quinn storm to the back of the classroom.

"I'm changing seats," Quinn informs her, settling into a desk all the way in the back of the classroom where she now knows she should have just gone to in the first place.

"Whatever," Rachel sighs, folding herself deeper inside of her own chair. She pulls herself forward and rests her chin inside of her hand, drumming her fingers against her skin softly, wanting this day to be over before it has even begun.

* * *

 _Quinn knew that it would only be a matter of time before Shelby cornered her._

 _Given the woman's track record of ignoring her own daughter, the blonde was hoping to have a bit more time to prepare, but much to Quinn's disappointment, Shelby's priorities are all out of order._

 _She should have known._

 _Shelby manages to get to Quinn late on Thursday afternoon, just as the blonde is preparing to ditch gym class in order to go to the gas station down the street with some of the Skanks to steal some snacks and cigarettes._

" _What the hell?" Quinn rages, ripping her elbow out of Shelby's grip when the woman grabs onto her tight and attempts to steer her into an empty classroom._

 _She glares at the older woman hard with a look that she hopes might shake her, but Shelby looks unfazed._

" _I've been looking for you for almost a week," she tells the blonde bluntly._

" _How convenient," Quinn snorts. "Because I've been trying to avoid you for almost a week."_

" _You haven't been showing up to your classes," Shelby tells her. Her tone does not sound accusing or even particularly interested. Instead, she is merely stating a fact._

" _I've been busy."_

" _Chain smoking with a gang of girls underneath the bleachers?" This time it is an accusation. Quinn reads the disappointment in Shelby's tone easily and wonders how much the woman could accomplish should she focus her energy on something that she could actually change._

" _They're not a gang," Quinn rolls her eyes. "They're just my friends, alright?"_

 _Quinn doesn't need this. She has enough people telling her what to do with her life. She doesn't need to hear it from Shelby Corcoran of all people now, too._

 _She pushes past Shelby, determined to leave quickly before the woman could stop her._

" _I managed to get a hold of Noah on Tuesday," Shelby calls to her and Quinn freezes despite everything in her body telling her to keep going._

 _She grips the doorknob, that is how close she had come to escaping._

 _She understands that technically, she could still leave. It's not like Shelby is holding her hostage with a gun to her head, but in her own way, Quinn reasons that that is exactly what Shelby is doing._

 _She is not threatening her with bullets, she is threatening her with Beth, and they both knew that that was much more powerful._

" _Don't you have your own problems to worry about?" Quinn asks. She is still gripping onto the doorknob, begging her brain to connect with her muscles long enough to walk out of this classroom, although it never does._

" _I told him the same thing that I want to tell you," Shelby continues, ignoring Quinn's quip. "I wish that I could have told you both together."_

" _Cool story," Quinn swallows but her voice falters._

" _I want you to be a part of Beth's life," Shelby pushes and that is when Quinn feels her grip on the doorknob loosen and her shoulders begin to shake._

" _Seriously?" Quinn falters, finally turning back around to face Shelby who nods at her._

" _That's part of the reason that I'm back."_

 _Quinn knows that Shelby is telling the truth at least partially. She knows this because Puck had tried to pull her to the side yesterday after glee, but the moment she heard the word_ Ms. Corcoran _come out of his mouth, she had shrugged him off. She didn't want to hear it._

 _Now she wishes that she hadn't done that. What did everybody always say about hindsight?_

" _Did you let Puck see her?" Quinn asks, turning her eyes to the ground._

" _Yesterday," Shelby confirms with a nod._

" _When can I?" Quinn stiffens, suddenly determined._

" _When I can trust you to be around her," Shelby narrows her eyes seriously at the blonde. "I know what you're going through Quinn, trust me. I went through the same exact thing after I gave Rachel up for adoption."_

" _You didn't give Rachel up for adoption," Quinn snaps despite the reminder that it is probably not in her best interest to do so right now, especially with Shelby holding Beth over her head like she is._

 _It is just that she hates that Shelby is comparing the two of them. Her and Shelby are nothing alike and she hates that Shelby thinks she can just snap her fingers, make a couple of comparisons, and try to relate in order to make up for everything she has done._

 _Quinn feels herself start to get angry again even though she knows that she is supposed to be working on that, even though she promised herself that she would do anything to get Beth back, even if that meant pretending to be nice to the woman who had taken her from her in the first place._

" _I gave Beth up because I thought it was the best thing for her," Quinn continues before she can stop herself. "You got pregnant for money. You and me, we are nothing alike so stop trying to pretend like you know how I feel."_

 _Shelby glares at the blonde, affronted. Her eyes show a glistening hurt, almost a fear for having said something so blatantly insensitive in front of the teenager who is clearly hurting right now._

" _If you think that trying to relate to me is going to make either one of us feel better, you're wrong," Quinn continues in place of Shelby's silence. "Everybody knows the truth. Rachel hates you because of what you did to her and I can't say that I really blame her much. My daughter will not hate me. Not like that. Not ever."_

 _Shelby's mouth opens and closes a handful of times, but she has nothing to follow up with and in the end, Quinn intercepts any attempt she could have made anyway by turning back around, this time committed to leaving._

 _She doesn't hesitate this time. Instead, when the blonde grabs the doorknob, she rips the door open so violently that it slams into the wall behind it._

" _Clean up your act, Quinn," Quinn finally hears Shelby call the warning to her when she is already halfway out the door. "Only then will I even consider giving you the opportunity to see Beth. The choice is up to you."_

* * *

Quinn is pulled back into reality by a sharp nudge in her ribs as an elbow connects with them hard.

She shoots up in her seat and only then does she realize that the entire classroom is staring at her.

Quinn turns towards the direction of the pain in her side and realizes that it is Rachel who has elbowed her. Try as she might to get away from the brunette, it turned out that every other seat in her biology classroom was already occupied thanks to her late addition to the class. In the end, Quinn had been assigned to the empty seat next to Rachel anyway.

Go figure.

Quinn quickly deduces that the reason that everybody is staring at her is because apparently, the teacher had asked her a question.

Quinn had been so absorbed trying to decide whether putting on this act for Shelby was worth it, or if she would be better off trying to get Beth back another way that she hadn't even heard it. Hell, she didn't even know what they were learning about.

She knows that she should be paying close attention. She has already missed a week of class. But how was she supposed to concentrate when her life was falling apart all around her?

"I'm sorry, what?" Quinn asks the teacher to repeat herself and tries to ignore the snickers and eye rolls coming from her classmates, who Quinn tries desperately not to think might actually have a point when they whisper about how she doesn't belong in a class like this.

"I asked if you can tell me what the difference between a dominant and a recessive gene is."

Genetics. Of course they are talking about genetics.

It is as though the universe is trying to punish her, like it doesn't want her to forget the awful mistake that she had made in letting another person raise her child.

Ironically, Quinn knows a lot about the differences between dominant and recessive genes.

She thinks back to the picture of Beth that Puck had shown her when she had cornered him about his visit last week and realizes that the difference between a dominant and a recessive gene is why Beth has her mother's hazel eyes as opposed to her father's muddled brown ones. It is why the little girl has blonde hair that sits neatly on top of her head in thin curls, but Puck's nose and his dimples and his smile.

Quinn knows all of this but of course, she can't very well say that out loud. She can't explain to her teacher or her classmates why Beth looks the way she does; a jumbled combination of her and Puck, perfect in every way. She can't explain why her daughter is there, and she is here, and why their paths never seem to cross.

She can't explain any of it.

"I don't know," Quinn grumbles softly instead and the class erupts in a soft giggle at Quinn's apparent ineptitude.

The only person not laughing at Quinn is Rachel. Instead, the brunette glances sideways, staring at the blonde with a look of concern.

Finally, she stiffens inside of her chair and coughs loudly with the answer to the question that the blonde could not bring herself to field, trying to spare Quinn the embarrassment that she is all too familiar with.

"A dominant gene is expressed even if only one allele is inherited," Rachel recites precisely. "A recessive trait has to have both copies of the allele in order to be expressed."

"Very good Rachel," the teacher nods and just like that, everybody seems to forget that it was Quinn who was supposed to answer that question in the first place.

The blonde sinks back inside of her seat and tries to smile at Rachel, thanking her for her discretion despite how terrible she treated her today and every other day before that.

Rachel nods back at her, but her lips are pressed into a thin line and in the end, they both decide to leave it just at that.

* * *

Rachel is sitting by herself later in the cafeteria when Finn slides into the seat next to hers.

The girl looks down into her salad trying to mask her disappointment. She doesn't know why her boyfriend has been driving her so crazy lately. They had had the most remarkable summer together and she had made so many plans for their senior year and beyond.

But then, the first day of school had happened and ever since then, the mere sight of him – and anybody else for that matter – made Rachel want to curl into a ball and disappear.

"Hey," Finn nods. It is the most obvious thing for him to say, yet for some reason it makes Rachel want to cry.

Admittedly, her emotions have been dialed up high lately, and although that has always been her default setting, historically, she was only just being dramatic. These emotions, these _new_ emotions, they were very real, and Rachel is afraid that Finn just doesn't have the capacity to deal with her in this magnitude.

"Hi…" Rachel mumbles back, her voice quiet.

Finn's brows furrow in the center. He is having a hard time inferring whether or not Rachel is just in a week-long bad mood or if she is mad at him. Meanwhile, she is wondering whether she is being needy or if she really does need somebody who is better equipped to help her cope.

"I was looking for you after you got out of biology," he informs her and Rachel has to resist the urge to grimace blatantly.

"I stayed behind for a bit," Rachel answers, swirling the contents of her salad together with her fork. "Quinn registered for the class late and she needed some help catching up."

"So, are you and Quinn like… friends now or something?" Finn cocks an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" Rachel asks, looking up at him.

"I mean that you guys seemed kind of off each other's radar last year," Finn shrugs. "Now all of a sudden you're helping her in biology class?"

"She's a part of the glee club, isn't she? It's my job as captain to help the glee club. It doesn't matter if it is with singing or with grades." Rachel makes the speech pointedly. Her lines seem rehearsed, like she is reciting them for a play. "Besides, I don't think that Quinn is looking to be friends with anybody right now."

"She chased you out of glee that one day," Finn reminds her of that glee rehearsal on their first day of school. Rachel hadn't realized that he has been keeping track.

"She thought that I was going to punch Shelby," Rachel shrugs. "She wanted to see it."

"And did you?" Finn asks. Rachel look offended that he even has to ask.

"Of course not," she sighs, but she has had enough and immediately gathers up her belongings in preparation to leave. She doesn't want to be questioned by Finn anymore, or by anybody for that matter. In fact, the only thing that she does want is to be left alone.

"Listen Finn, I have to go to the library," she tells him. "Last night was my dad's birthday and we went out to dinner to celebrate so I didn't finish all of my homework. I'll see you later at glee."

It's not a total lie. That is what helps Rachel justify it when she grabs her lunch tray and walks away from Finn before he can call her back.

Halfway to the garbage, Quinn brushes past her trailed by a handful of Skanks. They are all holding trays from the hot lunch line which means that the reason they are so late to lunch is probably because they were stealing money from some poor, unsuspecting freshman.

Rachel watches Quinn and doesn't even realize that her feet have stopped moving.

She stares at the blonde trying to read her, trying to figure out why this powerful magnetic force seems to have linked them together ever since Shelby's return.

Rachel wonders how much longer it is going to take for the two of them to stop brushing off their continuously crossing paths as coincidence and start to realize that their best bet was to figure out how to work together.

"Walk much, loser?"

Rachel is staring so hard at Quinn that she doesn't even realize how long it's been until one of the Skanks shoulders her so hard into the wall behind her that she is surprised it doesn't leave a hole in the tile.

Rachel looks up at the girl, her face compressed with pain.

The Skank is a large, formidable girl who looks like she is at least twenty years old even though she is only a junior. Her skin is tanned, but it is not a natural tan. Instead, it looks like she had spent the summer working outside in the hot, Ohio sun.

She is smiling at Rachel, but there is nothing gentle about it as she palms the underside of Rachel's lunch tray and flips its contents straight into Rachel's chest.

The force of the blow pushes Rachel's back against the wall again.

The brunette feels the strawberry yogurt that she hadn't had the stomach to eat splatter against her chest, then she hears the laughter of the crowded cafeteria.

Rachel doesn't even have the energy to cry.

The Skank that had attacked her had intended on bringing her down, but she didn't know that Rachel was already feeling so dejected that there is no room for her to feel any worse.

The lack of a response from the small brunette seems to bore the Skank who attacked her. The girl walks away without so much as another word and rejoins the rest of her group, amongst them Quinn, who is starting at Rachel hard.

Who seems to be the only person on this planet who isn't laughing at her.

* * *

Quinn goes to see Shelby after biology class.

Last Thursday, the woman had warned her to turn over a new leaf, and despite her outburst, Quinn had spent the weekend thinking it over and now felt ready to prove to Shelby that she was ready to see Beth.

Quinn could tell that Shelby was skeptical about her sudden change of heart, but the blonde still manages to convince her to a supervised visit of Beth at Shelby's apartment on Wednesday night.

It is much more than what Quinn had been anticipating, and she rounds back into the hallway with a little extra pep in her step.

"There you are Blondie," Quinn hears somebody calling her name and turns over her shoulder where a small group of Skanks are approaching her. "Where've you been? Getting ready for a tea party?"

The girl nods her head at Quinn's baby blue dress and soft bob and gives her a disgusted look as though to say that she knew that Quinn didn't have what it took to fit in with the Skanks.

Quinn can't exactly tell them the truth about why she had dressed up for school today, so she quickly comes up with a lie that her new friends might approve of.

"I had court this morning," she says quickly. The truth is that Quinn has never been to court in her life, and she knows that the Skanks are more than familiar with the experience. If they start pressing for details, Quinn is screwed. She wishes that she anticipated The Skanks questioning her so that she might have come up with something more believable.

"For what?"

"Traffic court," Quinn answers quickly. "Reckless driving."

It is the first thing that pops into her head, and the only reason it does is because her mother had to go to court for reckless driving once when in reality, she probably should have been arrested for a DUI. Luckily, the officer who had pulled her over was familiar with her father, who had slipped him a little something extra for keeping the charges minimal.

"Lose your license?"

"Nah, just a fat fine for Daddy to pay." Quinn eases into her own lie. She finds that she is getting better at that with time and wonders if she should consider that a good thing. "I got some lunch money off a freshman on the way in, too. Are you guys hungry? I'm buying."

Quinn pulls a twenty dollar bill out of her pocket. This is another lie. She hadn't stolen the money from anybody. It's just some of the leftover tip money that she still had from working over the summer.

"There might be hope for you yet, Fabray," The Skank smirks at Quinn and plucks the money from Quinn's fingers. When the group turns away from her towards the cafeteria, the blonde releases a breath of relief she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.

Her secret is safe for now.

Quinn follows her new friends into the cafeteria. The lunch period is already halfway over meaning the room is already packed when they walk in with their food.

While the Skanks are scanning the crowded room for an empty table, Quinn spots Rachel making her way towards the trash cans and immediately starts to wonder why her eyes always seem to automatically find the brunette even when she is not looking for her.

It doesn't take Rachel very long to feel somebody staring at her.

Her eyes tip up and find Quinn's, and it feels like a punch when Rachel gives her an expression like she would rather disappear into the wall than to have this staring contest.

"Walk much loser?"

Quinn holds her breath when she realizes that her Skank friends have also spotted Rachel, and have decided to latch onto her without Quinn even noticing.

The blonde watches the interaction in slow motion.

She knows that she could probably do something to stop the group just by speaking up, but she had just barely escaped the gang with one lie. She is certain she would not be able to get away with another one.

Quinn knows that her guilt will be no consolation to Rachel when the small brunette gets her lunch tray, full with half-eaten food flipped straight up into her chest.

The force of the blow is so hard that Rachel flies into the wall behind her. Her back hits it with a thud that leaves Quinn wincing.

The Skanks do not do Slushees. Slushees are a jock thing and The Skanks hardly wanted to be associated with them.

They don't do the things they do just to hurt somebody's pride and self-esteem, they do them to hurt the person.

They are a brutal group, and are vengeful for no particular reason, and while Quinn never really cared about all that when it was a stranger facing the brunt of a Skank attack, for some reason, seeing them target Rachel ignites a flame inside of her stomach.

Quinn notices a shimmer inside of Rachel's eyes, but with a small sense of pride that she knows she has no right to feel, the tears never fall.

Instead, Rachel throws her tray onto the cafeteria floor and storms out of the room, wiping the strawberry yogurt off her front as best as she can while she does so.

Quinn knows that she isn't laughing at Rachel alongside the rest of the cafeteria, but she hadn't exactly done anything to come to Rachel's defense either, and she certainly wasn't chasing her down now.

The blonde follows the trail of yogurt into the hallway with her eyes. It is the exact same color that her hair had been just last week.

That color had not been chosen by Quinn at random.

The blonde had picked up the box of hair dye from a corner store in Rhode Island one summer day because it reminded her of the two pink lines that she had seen on her pregnancy test on that fateful day two Septembers ago. It reminded her of the card Noah had stolen for her after they found out that they were having a girl. It reminded her of the soft, cotton baby blanket that Beth had been wrapped in on the day that Shelby took her away…

It has never been a coincidence, none of it was and for the first time, Quinn realizes that shame always seems to come to her in the color pink.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello again everybody! I just wanted to take a minute to thank you all for every review/follow/read. It means a lot I really appreciate it.**

 **Quick heads up, I will be on vacation until the 23rd so that's why I pumped the first couple of chapters out quickly cause it will be a couple of days before the next ones up.**

 **Thanks again. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter 3** **:**

"Remember, if you see clumping in your palate that means that the antibodies that you are adding to your blood sample are reacting to the antigens on your blood cells and you possess that particular blood type. No clumping indicates that you do not possess the antigens and therefore, you do not have that blood type. If you do not see clumping in either blood type that means you are type O."

The next day in biology class, Rachel is zoning in and out, hardly paying attention as her teacher explains the ins and outs of a lab exercise on blood-typing that they are doing to conclude their unit on genetics.

Instead, the majority of her focus is concentrated on Quinn.

The blonde had sat next to her this morning pretending that nothing was different between the two of them, but Rachel notices that she is sitting just a little too stiffly at her desk for it to be believable that she thinks that everything is just fine.

Rachel knows that Quinn hadn't been the culprit who humiliated her and physically assaulted her in the cafeteria yesterday, but it was one of Quinn's new friends who did, and the blonde hadn't exactly done anything to try to stop it. In Rachel's eyes, that made her just as accountable.

On the table in front of the lab partners are all the materials they will need for today's lab. Included among them are small needles they will use to prick each other's fingers to determine their blood types.

Rachel stares at the needle with a small sense of satisfaction. Quinn may not have been responsible for what happened yesterday, but Rachel can think of a million other infractions to hold over the blonde's head.

Quite frankly, Quinn has been a pain in her ass lately, so Rachel is looking forward to an opportunity to stab her even if it is only in the finger with a tiny needle.

"Ow! What the hell Berry?"

Quinn reels when Rachel finally gets her opportunity and capitalizes on it. She plunges the needle as hard as she can into the middle finger of Quinn's right hand. It feels better than even Rachel thought it would and afterwards, the brunette just shrugs like it had been an accident even though they both know better.

"Sorry," Rachel apologizes emptily.

Quinn glares at her for a moment but even she knows she probably deserved that, so she says nothing as she squeezes her pricked finger, pooling the droplets of blood into the tiny plastic reservoirs in front of her before adding the antibodies that will reveal her blood type like some kind of magic trick.

"Nothing is happening," Quinn sighs after a moment. "What does this even mean?"

"Were you even paying the slightest bit of attention when Mrs. Hunt was explaining the assignment?" Rachel asks, peering over Quinn's shoulder to observe the stagnant puddles of blood for herself.

Admittedly, Rachel herself had been daydreaming throughout the majority of the lecture, but she was at least focused enough to be able to read the instructions on the handout and figure it out for herself.

"Of course not," Quinn groans like this should be obvious and Rachel rolls her eyes so hard that it gives her a headache.

"You're hopeless," she tells the blonde, flipping through her papers so that she might be able to interpret Quinn's results for her.

"Just tell me what it means, Berry!" Quinn snaps at her partner, ignoring their neighbors sitting in the desks around them who shoot them glances that tell Quinn and Rachel that they are wondering if it is possible for the girls to do anything without it ending in an argument.

"It means your blood type is O negative," Rachel bites back at Quinn, throwing the papers at her so that the blonde might interpret the proof for herself.

"Boring," Quinn mutters. "Typical. Okay, it's your turn now."

Quinn reaches across the table and grabs a clean needle. She points it at Rachel like a weapon, but the brunette retreats.

"There is no way I'm letting you stab me with that thing. Hand it over, Quinn. I can do it myself."

"Like hell you can," Quinn argues, grabbing Rachel's wrist and forcing her hand in front of her. "You almost pushed that stupid needle through my damn finger before, Berry. This is revenge."

"And they call me the drama queen," Rachel mutters but her sarcasm turns into a shriek of pain as Quinn depresses the needle deep into her finger with a sharp pinch.

"Ouch!" Rachel shouts, pulling her bleeding hand out of Quinn's grip to hold tight against her chest. "There's no way I did it that hard for you!"

Rachel looks down to survey the damage Quinn has done. Despite the pain, her finger is leaking only a few drops of blood. Rachel knows that she will have to move quickly or else risk Quinn having to prick her again and she certainly isn't about to do that.

"Drama queen…" Rachel hears Quinn mock her as she loads her own reservoir with her blood sample and diligently begins mixing it with the antibodies just as Quinn had done before her.

Both Rachel and Quinn watch as clumps start to appear immediately in all three of Rachel's samples.

"Why is yours so much more interesting than mine?" Quinn asks dejectedly.

"Because I'm AB+ apparently," Rachel answers. "My blood reacts with all of the antibodies. You're O-. Your blood doesn't react with any of them."

"Mine was boring," Quinn sighs, sinking down into her chair.

"Well, you can blame your parents for that," Rachel shoots back.

"Just another thing to add to the list, I guess," Quinn rolls her eyes in a gesture that Rachel returns almost naturally at this point.

"How about we just don't talk and finish our lab so we can get out of here," Rachel suggests.

"Fine by me," Quinn mutters as she slides her worksheet in front of her in order to begin to tackle the questions in the back. "First question: what is your blood type? Answer. The world's most boring one."

Quinn scribbles in her answer with sloppy handwriting. Rachel glances over her shoulder. For a moment, she's afraid that Quinn is actually going to write _most boring_ but is satisfied when she sees that the blonde actually provides the correct response.

"Question two," Rachel chimes aloud when she is finished writing down her own answer. "What does your blood type indicate about your parents' possible blood types?"

"That my parents suck and couldn't even manage to give me good DNA?" Quinn asks.

"It means that your parents can be pretty much anything," Rachel tells her. Quinn only laughs.

"You're giving them too much credit."

"I'm talking about their blood type," Rachel corrects. "The O gene is recessive. So is a negative Rh factor. That means that they can either be O- like you or they can have one copy of the dominant allele that is expressed and one copy of the recessive one that isn't but was still able to be passed down to you."

"Thanks Einstein," Quinn mutters but Rachel notices that she still writes down her answer almost verbatim.

"Einstein was a physicist," Rachel corrects. "This is biology class."

"Whatever," Quinn rolls her eyes. "What does yours mean?"

Rachel hesitates and looks back down at her blood smear. Normally, she wouldn't think twice about a technical question regarding her parentage but with Shelby so near the idea of it makes her a little uneasy.

"It means that one of my parents has to be either A or AB and the other has to be either B or AB. At least one of them has to be Rh positive." Rachel answers, forcing herself to put aside her insecurities for the sake of an A on the assignment.

"You're better at this than me," Quinn sighs. If she had noticed Rachel's sudden discomfort, she doesn't mention it. "Can you just do mine for me?"

"Of course not," Rachel scoffs at the mere idea.

"You're the worst Berry," Quinn argues. "You do know that right?"

"And I liked you a lot better when you weren't showing up to class, Fabray," Rachel retorts.

"At least I keep things interesting," Quinn shrugs and at this, Rachel actually manages a small smile, forcing a joke.

"Says the girl with the world's most boring blood type."

* * *

Rachel works through lunch to finish her lab assignment in the library. Once again, she finds herself utilizing homework as an excuse to keep her distance from not only Finn, but from Quinn and her band of Skanks as well.

Rachel is trying to lay low if only to avoid another incident with them like the one she had suffered through yesterday. She had finished all her lab questions some time ago, but still finds herself staring at the piece of paper, buying her time.

That second question is popping out at her again, mocking her.

 _What does your blood type indicate about your parents' possible blood types?_

Rachel wishes that it could tell her everything. She wishes that it was as simple as a high school biology project to prick her finger and be able to determine why she hadn't been good enough for Shelby, why she still wasn't, and why she most likely never would be.

Rachel is thinking about Shelby so much today that it seems almost obvious when the woman appears in her French class last period as a substitute.

Rachel hasn't seen Shelby at all since that first day of school aside from a couple of quick passes in the hallway.

She knew that logically, as a substitute teacher in her high school, it was only a matter of time before their paths crossed in this manner but still, Rachel finds it ironic that it has to be today of all days.

Luckily, Shelby doesn't speak a word of French, which means that all she does in the class is shut the lights off and let the students watch a movie.

Halfway through the period, Rachel finds herself wishing that she had the distraction of an actual lesson. She finds it difficult to stop her mind from wandering when she has nothing else to pay attention to.

"Rachel!"

The girl blinks and when she comes to, she realizes that Shelby is hovering above her, staring into her expressionless eyes with a look of utmost concern.

"Are you okay?" the older woman asks nervously as Rachel blinks up at her.

With a sharp inhale, Rachel forces herself back into focus.

The classroom lights are back on now. The television that had been playing a movie last Rachel remembers is off and the classroom is empty save for her and Shelby. The bell must have rung without Rachel even hearing it. The girl wonders if she had fallen asleep but she doesn't remember doing that either and she hates that Shelby's presence has her questioning everything.

"Um… yeah. I'm fine. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do… whatever that was." Rachel scrambles, her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment of having been caught in such a precarious position by Shelby.

Rachel gathers up her belongings quickly, rushing to shove them inside of her backpack so that she can leave with at least some of her dignity intact. Shelby, however, has other plans.

"Rachel, wait."

The young girl forces herself to pause and look up. Shelby looks just as flustered as she feels. It comes with a sense of satisfaction that Shelby seems to get just as nervous in front of Rachel as Rachel gets in front of her.

"You… you seem a little off today," Shelby finally tells the girl. "I wasn't sure if something was wrong or if… if you were just upset that you had me as a substitute. I just wanted you to know that I had no idea you were in this class. I would have turned down the offer if I did."

"I appreciate the concern, Ms. Corcoran but it's not necessary. You don't have to worry about me." Rachel keeps her voice clipped and professional despite how desperately she wants to scream. In the end, her self-control seems to be more satisfying because the hurt look that Shelby gives her in response to her tightly polished script feels even better than yelling would have.

"You know Rachel, you can call me Shelby when we're not in class," the woman swallows, extending the offer hesitantly.

"We _are_ in class," Rachel points out and Shelby sighs.

"You know what I mean."

Rachel scowls for a moment, considering the woman. "Thank you, Ms. Corcoran, but I'm not looking for any special treatment. Not from you and not from anybody else."

Shelby sighs and glances down at the floor with a nod of her head that indicates that she has heard her estranged daughter loud and clear.

"For the record Rachel, I would do this for any one of my students if I caught them zoning out in class," Shelby insists but realizes that it is the wrong thing to say the second that Rachel's face falls.

The smaller girl doesn't understand why it is so hard for Shelby to recognize that she is _not_ like any of her other students. She certainly doesn't want any preferential treatment, but she doesn't understand why Shelby has to constantly pretend like she means nothing to her, either.

The concept doesn't seem so hard, and Rachel wonders how Shelby has been an adoptive mother for over a year now yet still have absolutely no idea how to act in front of her own flesh and blood.

"I'm sorry," Shelby scrambles to correct her insensitivity, cursing her seeming inability to do anything right whenever Rachel is in her vicinity. "That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant," Rachel tells her coolly. "Now, if you don't have anything else for me, I have a lot of homework to do tonight."

Rachel grabs her backpack, stuffed to capacity with none of its usual organization and slings it over her shoulder. She wants to slip quietly out of this classroom before things between her and Shelby can get even more awkward.

"I'm just worried about you Rachel, that's all," Shelby calls after the girl.

"Don't lose sleep over it," Rachel mutters, never slowing down. The last thing she needs right now is Shelby's concern of all people's. "I'm fine."

Shelby frowns, her arms crossed tight over her chest as she studies Rachel carefully.

The girl looks exhausted. There are dark circles under her eyes and her face is paler than usual. That would be all the stress. Shelby cringes, unable to help but to feel a sense of responsibility.

Rachel feels Shelby's intense gaze on her, and despite her mind telling her to get the hell out of here, her feet skid to a stop, suddenly frozen. Being under this much scrutiny is starting to make her brain spin. The organ has already been working overtime. This certainly is not helping.

"If you wanna talk…" Shelby offers airily. Her tone is persistent, but soft. It doesn't escape Rachel that this is the most naturally the woman has ever spoken to her.

The idea of getting an air of maternity from Shelby practically forces Rachel's eyes up to meet her mother's.

Shelby's eyes are greener than hers, Rachel notices for the first time. It is probably the most dramatic difference between their physical appearance. Otherwise, they seem nearly indistinguishable.

"It's nothing," Rachel finally says, forcing her eyes away from Shelby's and onto the floor. She knows that she cannot afford to be sitting here making physical comparisons between her and Shelby. Doing so would only lead to more heartbreak.

"If it's nothing then why won't you answer me?" Shelby is being uncharacteristically pushy. A part of Rachel enjoys pretending that Shelby actually cares. A stronger part of her wishes she would stop.

"That's not fair," Rachel accuses. The older woman retreats, recognizing her mistake and nods her head softly, backtracking.

"You're right, I'm sorry," Shelby apologizes. "I just... This doesn't seem like you, that's all."

"How would you know?" Rachel accuses, trying and failing not to make her voice waiver. "You don't know me."

Shelby frowns but nods again. That is a fair point for Rachel to make, as much as it might hurt. Despite their biological connection, they don't know each other. They don't know each other at all.

"I guess that I'm just feeling sort of responsible for the way that you're feeling right now," Shelby admits.

Rachel swallows, but doesn't say anything, imploring her mother to continue. An apology is all she ever really wanted from Shelby. She wonders if she is finally going to get just that.

"I keep thinking about your Sectionals performance your sophomore year," the woman continues. "You had every card stacked against you and still, you shined. Every time I see you now, you look a little bit duller and I'm afraid that I have something to do with that."

Rachel glances up at her mother. Her honesty is a breath of fresh air despite the context.

"It's been a week and you've hardly even looked at me," Rachel feeds off her mother's insecurities and admits to her own. She feels tears start to swell underneath her eyes. The harder she tries to convince herself not to cry, the harder they threaten, and Rachel can't help but wonder how weak Shelby probably thinks she is.

"You told me that you wanted your space."

"I didn't mean it!" Rachel erupts. Even she seems surprised by her outburst. "What I wanted was for you to be able to see the truth like mothers are supposed to do! I wanted you to reach out to me, to tell me that you actually give a damn about me. I wanted you to tell me that you didn't just come back here because somebody offered you some money, just like I wanted you to tell me that that's not the reason that you decided to even have me in the first place!"

Shelby sighs and looks down at the floor. She takes her time, sinking into one of the empty desks.

Rachel hesitates but ultimately decides to follow the woman, falling into the chair one row in front of her and two seats to the left.

It does not go unnoticed by either one of them that this is the exact arrangement they had sat in when they had first met inside of that dark auditorium at Carmel High School.

"I guess that I'm bad at this," Shelby breathes after a long time. "But for the record, Rachel, I do give a damn about you. I always have. That and a whole lot more."

Rachel hangs her head to her chest, staring down at her lap, suddenly embarrassed by her temper.

"I wanted to be a mother so badly," Shelby continues after a moment. "My parents, they weren't great. They gave me everything that I wanted but they never had the emotional capacity for parenthood. I thought that if I had a child of my own, I would be able to break that cycle. So much for that, huh?"

Rachel takes a deep breath. The subsequent silence is starting to make her uncomfortable. She doesn't know what to say. She wonders if Shelby is looking for comfort, but quickly remembers that that is not her job and moves on.

"I heard that you let Puck and Quinn see Beth."

"I extended the offer," Shelby confirms. "Quinn hasn't seen her yet. She's not ready. But giving them that opportunity was part of the reason that I decided to come back to Lima. Things like this take time. They take patience."

"I thought that the only reason you came back to Lima was because you were getting paid," Rachel glances over her shoulder towards Shelby, echoing the excuse the woman had given her when she had confronted her on the first day of school.

Shelby nods tensely, indicating to Rachel that she understands that the girl is giving her one more chance and one more chance only to get her explanation right.

"The money was nice," Shelby admits with a shrug. "But what was even nicer was having that opportunity to reach out to Puck and Quinn. And to you. Rachel, you have to know that I came back here for you too."

"Could have fooled me," Rachel sighs, turning back to face front as she sinks further into her seat.

"Al Motta called me in the middle of the afternoon the Sunday before the first day of school," Shelby continues, ignoring Rachel's quip. "I drove here all the way from New York. I had to make sure that I would make it before the first bell rang the next day. I didn't even pack anything aside from Beth's diaper bag and a duffel full of clothes. I've been living in a hotel since I got here. I figured that with the money Mr. Motta offered me, I could afford to hire somebody to pack all of my things in New York and bring them here to Lima for me." Shelby smirks and laughs gently to herself, looking down at her hands. "Do you know how long the drive between New York and Lima is, Rachel?" Shelby asks after a moment of silence.

"Nine hours and twenty-three minutes," Rachel answers without pause. She has looked it up a million times before. Shelby smiles and nods as though she had been expecting nothing less than that exact answer from Rachel.

"I drove all night. The entire time, all I could think about was what I could possibly say to you to make up for everything I did." Shelby pauses, shaking her head slowly. "Nine hours and twenty-three minutes and I didn't come up with a damn thing."

Rachel tightens her lips together and presses them closed. She doesn't know what to say to Shelby but that hardly seems to matter because now that the woman has started talking, she seems to be easing into the words she has been looking for this entire time.

"There are so many things that I wanted to tell you, but I was so afraid that you wouldn't understand. I was afraid that I would only make you angrier. I've already hurt you so much. I didn't want to hurt you even more. That's why I reached out to Quinn first. I could identify with Quinn. I knew exactly what she was going through. It's the same thing that happened to me after I had you. I knew what she wanted to hear. When I saw you… well, I realized that I had no idea. All I saw was the pain that I had caused you and that made me want to crawl in a ball and hide. It still does. I don't like not having control over a situation. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to realize that this isn't about me. It's about you, and I couldn't do what I did to you again."

Rachel risks looking over her shoulder at Shelby.

The woman is not looking at her. Instead, she looks straight ahead, focusing on the whiteboard in front of the classroom with glossy eyes.

Rachel doesn't say anything because she wants Shelby to keep going. This is the most honest that her mother has ever been with her, and despite the pain in her eyes, it feels good to finally hear the truth.

"I walked into this school on that first day figuring I would be able to just wing a conversation when we inevitably saw each other. I had so many things planned to say, but then you were the one who came to me and you had fire in your eyes, kid."

Shelby smirks at the memory, but her eyes remain sad.

"I'm still angry," the younger girl admits.

Shelby nods as though she had been expecting this much. The woman has left a lifetime of wounds implanted inside of Rachel's heart. Neither of them are expecting a single conversation in the back of an empty French classroom to change that.

"You have every right to be," Shelby nods. "But you're not yelling at me this time, so I am going to consider that an improvement."

Shelby cocks an eyebrow, looking for a confirmation that Rachel gives to her in the form of a shallow nod.

"Does this mean we can stop pretending that there isn't any connection between us now?" Rachel asks after a moment.

Shelby pauses, thinking about her answer. "That's up to you and your fathers."

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "Why them?"

"They're your parents, Rachel," Shelby sighs. "And I undermined their authority once before. I want to get things between us right this time. That means doing it the right way."

Rachel nods, appreciative of the gesture.

"I'll talk to them," she promises.

Shelby smiles at Rachel and this time, there is no hint of the sadness that Rachel had seen last time.

Rachel nods, but she senses this conversation ending so she stands up from her desk, this time without the urgency of escape that she had displayed before.

The girl moves slowly, draping her backpack over her shoulders. Shelby does not try to stop her as she silently makes her way towards the door.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," Rachel calls to Shelby from the doorway.

"I'll see you tomorrow," the older woman reciprocates with a satisfied nod.

Rachel pushes the classroom door open. The hallways are crowded with students gathering their belongings and chatting with friends as they decompress after the end of yet another school day.

Rachel hesitates. Not quite ready to join them, she turns back towards Shelby.

"Shelby?" Rachel calls to the woman from the doorway.

Shelby glances up at Rachel. She looks relieved to hear her first name coming out of her daughter's mouth and not the formidable _Ms. Corcoran_ that Rachel had been using to hint that there would never be room for them to formulate any level of a personal relationship.

"Can I ask you something?"

Shelby nods. "Sure."

"What's your blood type?" Rachel asks with a smirk.

She knows that it is a bizarre question, but she's had that stupid lab report on her mind all day wondering whether or not she would ever have the opportunity to get close enough with Shelby to know something so personal. What might sound like an outrageous question to Shelby is the symbolic stepping-stone that Rachel had been referring to when she indicated that she would like to take things slow.

"What?" Shelby asks, raising a confused, yet humored eyebrow.

"I have to do this lab report for my biology class," Rachel explains. Shelby just shrugs her shoulders, not thinking anything more of it.

"I'm A-," she answers her daughter who nods appreciatively.

"Thanks," Rachel smirks before turning out of the classroom into the crowded hallway with the thought in her mind that maybe Shelby being here wouldn't be as bad as she had previously expected.

* * *

 _What does your blood type indicate about your parents' possible blood types?_

Rachel stares at the question on her biology assignment and reads it over and over and over again. She knows exactly what keeps attracting her to it.

According to the laws of genetics, which Rachel has been meticulously studying for the past two weeks, if Shelby's blood type is really A- then that meant that whoever her biological father is would have to be either AB+ or B+.

Last week, her biology teacher had mentioned that these two blood types were among the rarest in the United States. Chances are that only one of her fathers would possess it.

This is all the information that Rachel needs to finally figure out who her biological father is.

Rachel has been going back and forth between asking them all night. She knew how much it meant to them that they never knew which one of them actually fathered Rachel. And they were already devastated by Shelby's return. If they knew that Rachel was considering approaching the truth about her paternity, it would ruin them.

It's not that Rachel believes that the knowledge would make her feel any differently towards her fathers. Rachel loves the both of them equally. No high school biology lab would ever change that.

Rachel thinks that her fathers would understand this, but they're always telling her how special not knowing made their family and the timing was just all wrong for her to admit to them now that she has always held a morbid curiosity about where she came from.

"Rachel?"

Her Daddy LeRoy knocks on her partially ajar bedroom door and Rachel slams her biology textbook closed like she is afraid that he is going to see her reading the chapter on genetics and immediately realize that she is not studying, but hatching a plan to figure out the identity of her biological father.

She watches her father raise a curious eyebrow at her. She has been acting strange since she came home from school today.

"What are you doing up here?" he asks her, stepping further into her bright yellow bedroom. Rachel sits a little bit straighter inside of her desk chair and tries her hardest to look innocent.

"Just finishing up some homework, Daddy," she tells him, offering up the most convincing smile that she can muster.

"Well, dinner is ready downstairs," he informs her softly. "How about you take a break from all of that homework and come downstairs to eat. Even Barbra ate dinner between rehearsals, Rach."

"Okay Daddy," Rachel forces another smile and pulls herself reluctantly up from her desk so that she can follow her father down the stairs and into the dining room where her Daddy Hiram is just placing the last of the serving dishes out onto the table.

Rachel sits down in her usual chair, scanning her fathers closely. She is looking for any signs of familiarity, trying to make assumptions about their features compared to her own so that she would not be surprised when she finally did uncover the truth.

This is not the first time that she has done this but tonight, everything feels different.

"You seem distracted tonight, Star."

Rachel looks up at the sound of her father Hiram's voice. She must have been dozing off into outer space some time because both of her fathers are almost completely finished with their meals. Meanwhile, she has barely touched her own plate.

"Anything interesting?" he prompts through a bite of food and Rachel has to swallow the lump that has formed in her throat. She feels her heart start to flutter inside of her chest. She realizes that if she is going to ask them, it has to be now.

"Actually, I was thinking about my newest AP Biology assignment. I'm working on a paper about the frequencies of blood types in the United States. We're all going to collect information about the blood types of people we know and then compare the data to see if they match the population frequency."

Rachel hates how easily she is able to lie to her parents and wonders if maybe she is spending a little too much time with Quinn lately. But she needs to lie to them. The truth would only hurt them.

That is what she tells herself, anyway.

"So," Rachel asks, holding her breath. "Do you both know your blood type?"

* * *

Biology class is the last place that Rachel wants to be the next morning, but her muscles move independently from anything that her brain is telling her, and she makes it to class anyway.

She sits down in her usual spot next to Quinn. The blonde is already staring at her like she can tell that something is wrong. Rachel has a look on her face like she has seen a ghost.

She feels like she had.

"You don't have to look so happy to see me," Quinn tells Rachel. It is her way of asking the brunette what's wrong.

Quinn stares at the girl, waiting for her to retort with something obnoxiously typical of Rachel Berry, but that never comes.

"Are you giving me the silent treatment now?" Quinn asks. "Is this about the Skanks? Shelby? Do you want me to apologize? I apologize."

"It's not about the Skanks," Rachel finally breathes but her voice is distant, and it bites hard. "It is about Shelby, though."

"Of course it is," Quinn breathes. She looks distressed by Rachel's distance, especially when it boils down to the mutual thorn in their side: Shelby. "So, what'd she do this time?"

Rachel grinds her teeth hard. She doesn't want to talk about Shelby. That woman had fooled her yesterday, not for the first time but certainly for the last.

She had lied to Rachel about wanting to be honest with her yesterday. What she had found out from her fathers last night had proved that much.

The worst part is that Shelby isn't the only one lying.

Rachel turns to glance up at Quinn. The blonde is staring at her with that same deep, hazel expression that she had noticed on that very first day of school in the back of the auditorium after she had confronted Shelby the first time.

Quinn is the only other person on this planet who can understand what she is feeling. She is the only other person who knows what it feels like to be this hurt by Shelby Corcoran.

"I talked to her yesterday," Rachel admits. "Her blood type is A-."

"You guys had a weird conversation," Quinn raises an eyebrow.

"My dads never really told me much about how I was born," Rachel continues, ignoring Quinn. "The only thing they ever told me was that they put an ad out in the newspaper for a surrogate and Shelby responded. They said they used at-home remedies to get Shelby pregnant with me."

Quinn raises a confused and slightly grossed-out eyebrow.

"Sounds very technical," she quips, but she sounds interested despite this.

"The point is that they always told me that nobody knew which one of them is my biological father. Everything was supposed to have happened at random."

Rachel closes her eyes and tries to control her breathing as it grows irregular in her distress. She knows that she should not be taking this much merit into a conclusion formulated from a high school biology project but the information she had received yesterday was only the tip of the iceberg. Her fathers and Shelby are covering up a secret regarding her parentage, and she needs to find out what that secret is.

"Then, I couldn't get that stupid lab we did yesterday out of my head and when I asked Shelby, she told me that her blood type was A-. That meant that whoever my dad was had to be either B+ or AB+ for me to be AB+. So, I asked them last night. I figured it would be a subtle way for me to find out who was my real father. I told them that it was for a biology paper on the frequency of blood types."

"You lied to them?" Quinn asks. Her voice does not sound accusing, only surprised.

"They're the ones who have been lying to me," Rachel hisses.

"What do you mean?" Quinn swallows. Rachel only glares at the blonde, shaking her head slowly.

"They're both O-," Rachel breathes. "Neither one of them is my biological father."


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys, I'm back! I know that this is a little bit late, but I ended my vacation into a long weekend and we all know how that goes.**

 **First and foremost, I want to thank everybody again for the overwhelming support and responses. You are all really incredible. It always pushes me to keep going so any comments/suggestions/constructive criticism I am all for.**

 **Anyway, this chapter is an opportunity to get a little bit more into Quinn's mind. If you haven't figured it out yet I love me some super angsty, always has to figure things out the hard way Quinn but things will slowly start to piece together soon.**

 **I will be back sooner rather than later with more. Thanks again. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter 4** :

Quinn goes home with Rachel after school.

It hadn't been her intention but for some reason ever since Rachel told her of her suspicions about her fathers' true identities, Quinn has been unable to think of anything else.

The blonde has spent the majority of her morning trying to convince herself that her obsession is only because she is glad that Rachel Berry's life is proving to be far less perfect than the brunette always pretended it was.

But Quinn doesn't even believe herself on that front.

"Why are we doing this again?"

Rachel chases after the blonde. It is her house, yet the brunette finds herself being led by Quinn, who pushes into Rachel's bedroom, pausing only to gag at the nauseating shade of yellow that it is.

"Are you really going to base all of your facts on a high school biology lab, Berry?" Quinn responds, rolling her eyes at Rachel before helping herself to the girl's desk, flipping on her computer. "This is William McKinley we're talking about, not Harvard. Those results are about as accurate as Puck's aim on the toilet bowl. You have the bite. Now it's your responsibility to reel it in."

Quinn had come up with the idea herself. She approached Rachel with it at roughly the same time she had invited herself over the brunette's house.

If this were any normal day, Quinn recognizes that Rachel would likely be suspicious as to why Quinn has vested such a sudden interest in her personal life, but it is hardly a normal day. Rachel is far too curious about the answers that Quinn claims she can provide to ask any of the appropriate questions.

Rachel's silence is confirmation enough for Quinn, who nods her head and turns to the computer to get to work.

"I can't believe you never thought to do this yourself," Quinn tells Rachel with a vexing groan as she opens an internet browser and turns straight to Google.

The blonde types _At Home Paternity Test Kit_ into the search bar and hits Enter. 520,000 results greet her.

"I never had any reason to," Rachel shrugs, hovering over Quinn's shoulder.

"This is your whole life we're talking about here, Berry," Quinn pushes. "Whose name is on your birth certificate?"

"I don't know," Rachel shrugs and this time, Quinn doesn't even bother trying to suppress her frustration.

"You're almost eighteen years old and you've never seen your birth certificate?" the blonde gapes. "You're absolutely hopeless, you do know that, right? You never once thought that it was suspicious that your dads didn't show it to you?"

"That doesn't matter, Quinn," Rachel insists, struggling to defend her family dynamic despite the voice in the back of her head telling her that the blonde makes a compelling argument. "I didn't want to bring it up because I knew it was a sensitive subject for my dads. I didn't want to start digging and have them think that I loved one of them any less just because of what my genes say."

"Christ, you're nauseating," Quinn fakes a gagging motion as she begins to filter through the never-ending search results.

"We were good with what we had."

"Clearly," Quinn rolls her eyes sarcastically, but she does not linger on the topic as she comes across a result in her search that looks appeasing.

"Here. This is the one." Quinn changes the subject, clicking on the link in front of her. The computer screen blinks, and a new page emerges almost instantly.

"It says here that they charge orders to Home Paternity," Rachel points out. "I can't put that on my debit card, Quinn. My dads get the bill."

"Lucky for you, my mom doesn't pay much attention to my credit card bill. It's in my dad's name so she would prefer if I maxed it out anyway. I can put it on my card. Do you have any cash on you?"

"A little," Rachel shrugs. Quinn looks up at her.

"$150 worth?"

"$150?" Rachel's jaw drops like she is personally affronted by the outrageous cost.

"Paternity tests are expensive. It's a lucrative business," Quinn shrugs. "You can always go on The Maury Show."

"I'm not going on The Maury Show," Rachel rolls her eyes.

"Why not?" Quinn asks. "You'll get a free trip to New York out of it and I bet they won't even make you pay to for the test."

"I am _not_ going on Maury," Rachel emphasizes. She doesn't sound humored by Quinn's attempt at a joke. Mostly because she doesn't think that the blonde is actually joking.

As it is, she has to look over Quinn's shoulder just to make sure that the girl isn't secretly signing her up for a guest slot on the daytime talk show as they speak.

"Suit yourself," Quinn shrugs. "I guess that means you owe me a hundred and fifty bucks."

Rachel groans in an expression of her dissatisfaction with the deal but retreats to her dresser anyway. She digs around in the top drawer for a moment before pulling out a small jewelry box. When she opens it, Quinn finds that it is stuffed with a handful of pristine bills.

"You can rush the results for an extra hundred," Quinn informs Rachel.

The brunette glares at the blonde but counts out a couple more twenties and adds it to her pile before slapping the money down on the desk in front of Quinn.

"Order it."

* * *

Quinn follows Rachel's instructions, ordering the DNA test. The blonde even sends it to her house, Rachel insisting that if her dads see a package for her at their doorstep, they would want to know what was inside.

Quinn is just packing up to leave when Rachel's bedroom door swings open without so much as a warning knock. It is Rachel's father; Quinn doesn't know which one. The girls haven't even heard him come home.

"Rachel, didn't you hear me calling for you?" the man asks, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Quinn freezes, waiting for Rachel's reaction. The brunette had told her earlier that her fathers have no idea what she knows. After learning the truth, Rachel had somehow retained her composure throughout the remainder of dinner and then retreated upstairs to her bedroom where she has been avoiding her parents ever since.

Quinn knows that Rachel is pissed, but she doesn't even think that the brunette notices the way her eyes are currently narrowing in on her own father, and she senses the need to intervene before he uncovers their secret plan before they can even really get started.

"Sorry, Mr. Berry. We were just working on a group project for history class." Quinn fields the lie for Rachel, who seems to have lost her voice for the first time in her life.

"Quinn." The man turns to the blonde with a nod. He looks surprised by her input, like he hadn't even noticed that she had been standing their until she said something. Immediately, Quinn knows that he is suspicious. "It's nice to see you again."

"You don't have to lie, Mr. Berry," Quinn assures the man, letting him off the hook.

Before he can even process what Quinn had just said to him, the blonde grabs onto Rachel's hand and jerks her past her father and into the hallway.

"We have to go back to my house to finish the rest of our project. I left some of my notes at home," Quinn lies again. "I'll have Rachel home in time for dinner!"

Quinn drags Rachel down the stairs, leaving her stunned father behind.

Rachel's feet move in double-time, struggling to keep up as Quinn pulls her down the stairs and out the front door.

"You almost blew it back there!" Quinn scolds Rachel, only after the front door is firmly shut behind them and they are safely out of earshot of Rachel's father.

"What do you want me to do, Quinn?" Rachel seethes quietly. "This is all very new to me, you know."

"Which is exactly why you have to start being smarter about it," Quinn counters. "Go for a walk, clear your head. Do some of those stupid acting warm-ups you're always going on about in glee. Lying is all about being in the right state of mind. I brought you a couple of hours back there for you to figure it out. I recommend you take them."

Rachel only stares at the blonde. She has nothing to say to her. She knows that Quinn is right, but this entire situation is still so completely surreal that she can't bring herself to comprehend the advice.

Quinn takes her silence as a confirmation that Rachel has heard her loud and clear. Confident that her work here is done, the blonde turns over her shoulder and marches back towards her car.

"Where are you going?" Rachel calls after her.

Quinn doesn't even turn around. "I have a previous engagement!" she calls over her shoulder, purposefully vague as she ducks inside of her car without another word, leaving a very confused Rachel Berry behind.

* * *

Quinn hadn't been lying when she told Rachel that she had something else to do tonight.

The blonde drives under the speed limit, probably for the first time in her life, eyes scanning the buildings around her as she searches for the right address.

When she does finally find it, Quinn immediately notices that it is an apartment complex.

The doorman behind the desk in the lobby is polite and talkative. Apparently, he had been expecting her because he gives her directions to the apartment on the fourth floor without question.

It is only after she is in the elevator that it really hits Quinn where she is and what she is about to do.

She has half a mind to hit the emergency stop button and allow herself a good cry, but that would be counterproductive. In the end, she swallows her emotions and steps into the hallway, scanning the numbers on the apartment doors for the right one.

When she finds it, Quinn knocks quickly, forcing herself not to hesitate. She is afraid that if she does, she might do something stupid like run away. All she can do is pretend like this is any other house call.

She hears a slight rustling coming from the other side of the door. There is the sound of more than one voice. Quinn tries to search through the noise for the crying of a toddler, maybe an unidentifiable babble of words, but she hears nothing of the sort.

The door opens suddenly, and Quinn jumps a little bit. When she looks up, she is surprised to see Puck standing in the doorway.

"You're here already," Quinn comments, watching as Puck eyes her up and down, trying to judge her current state. He must not notice anything unusual, because he only shrugs and shoves his hands deep inside of his hoodie pockets.

"Shelby said 4:30," he tells her simply. "It's after 5."

"I had some homework to do," Quinn lies, and it guides them into a silence that lingers almost uncomfortably.

Neither one of them moves. Puck is still standing inside of the doorway, blocking her entrance, and Quinn is still straining, listening for evidence of Beth's presence that never comes.

"Are you gonna let me in?" Quinn finally has to ask.

"Oh yeah," Puck jumps and shakes his head like he had forgotten where he is and why Quinn had come here in the first place. This was all very new to both of the young parents.

"Thanks…" Quinn mutters, stepping into what looks like a living room.

There are moving boxes stacked to the ceiling, indicating that Shelby had only recently moved in, which makes sense because the first time Puck had met Beth, he had told Quinn that Shelby was still living in a hotel. There isn't even any furniture set up yet.

"Quinn. You made it."

Quinn hears Shelby's voice and her eyes snap up expectantly. She is hoping to see Beth with her but has to fight to mask her disappointment when she finds that her daughter is still nowhere to be seen.

"I'm sorry about the mess," Shelby pushes. Small talk. Not a good start in Quinn's eyes. "We just moved in last night. My things were delivered from New York this morning."

"It's okay," Quinn mutters, uninterested.

"The couch won't be here until tomorrow, but if you want to come into the dining room, I've got the table in there and Beth is playing in her pack-and-play in there."

Quinn releases a breath that she hadn't even realized she had been holding.

"She's here?" the blonde asks in a tiny voice. She was starting to think that this whole thing was a set-up.

"Of course," Shelby nods. "Would you like to see her?"

Quinn's lips fold in around themselves as she glances up at Shelby with a look of pure longing that she knows gives away her answer before she can even say it. She is terrified of what sounds might come out of her mouth should she open it so instead she just resolves to bite her tongue and nod.

"Come on," Shelby waves the blonde forward and somehow, Quinn manages to find her feet and follow Shelby into the small dining room where, as promised, Beth is suddenly just… _there_.

Quinn's feet stall. She lets out a tiny gasp of air before she can stop herself. She has been waiting for this moment for over a year, yet she finds that she doesn't know what to do now that it is here.

If she is being honest with herself, she doesn't feel much of anything. Instead, her mind is completely blank leaving her only able to stare at the tiny girl in front of her with an intensity like she has never and will never see anything quite so beautiful ever again.

Beth's back is turned towards her. The child is sitting, preoccupied with the multitudes of large, plastic baby toys that are scattered at her feet. She has absolutely no idea, the magnitude of everything that is going on just behind her back.

The only distinguishable thing that Quinn can really see of Beth from this position is the scarce wisps of thin, blonde curls that stick up all over her scalp, defying gravity. She has enough hair now that Shelby has managed to pull it up into tiny pigtails. For some reason, this is what Quinn finds herself fixating on the most.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Shelby whispers. It is almost as if she does not want to disturb Beth in this moment of peace. She is not ready to let the little girl know just how chaotic the world around her can become. For the first time in her entire life, Quinn actually agrees with the woman.

Quinn swallows but knows she cannot answer.

Beth _is_ beautiful, of course. She is the most beautiful thing that Quinn has ever laid eyes on, and in that moment, Quinn knows that she has to get her back.

The idea of sabotaging Shelby in an effort to regain custody of Beth has been on the back of Quinn's mind for some time now.

In that time, Quinn has thought up a multitude of different ways to try to frame Shelby as being an unfit parent. Each idea felt stupider than the last: a bottle of Tabasco sauce to plant inside of Beth's diaper bag, a couple of stupid books that she had stolen from one of her Skank friend's bedrooms on pagan rituals and human sacrifices…

Quinn considers the weight of those items, hiding inside of her bag right now, and she realizes that those ideas weren't just stupid, they were child's play. They would succeed in nothing beyond making her like an idiot.

Quinn knows that if she wants to prove that she can be an adult and raise a child, she would have to start acting like it. She needs to think bigger.

Immediately, Quinn's thoughts wander towards Rachel Berry and everything that Quinn had learned about her today.

Rachel didn't have to tell her the secret that she had discovered about Shelby and her fathers. In fact, Quinn honestly believes that she is the last person Rachel would normally confide in at all. Yet for some reason, she had.

What if the secret to Quinn getting Beth back was hiding inside of the results of that paternity test that her and Rachel had ordered today? What if Rachel's crisis became her saving grace? Was it possible that the secrets that Shelby and Rachel's fathers are hiding are dark enough that Quinn might be able to convince a judge that Shelby isn't worthy of Beth?

It would work better than a bottle of Tabasco sauce, that's for sure.

"Quinn?"

Quinn looks hesitantly at Shelby. Before she can stop herself, she immediately starts to feel guilty for what she is planning.

Everything inside of Quinn is telling her that Shelby's intentions tonight had been nothing short of genuine. Shelby is under no obligation to the young blonde, yet here they all are.

And what would going through with her plan do to Rachel?

"Would you like to hold Beth?"

Any thoughts of betrayal against either Shelby or Rachel immediately exit Quinn's mind the moment she realizes that Shelby is standing in front of her, holding Beth in her arms, extending the girl out towards Quinn like an offering.

Beth is staring up at her with wide, curious eyes that are identical to Quinn's, and Quinn can't tell if she is imagining the vague sense of familiarity in Beth's face or if it is genuine.

Somehow, Quinn manages to nod her head, and when Shelby passes the toddler into her arms, the blonde has to fight to wipe the bewilderment off her face.

Quinn balances the child carefully, if not slightly awkwardly as she attempts to adjust to the new weight inside of her arms.

The first and only time Quinn has ever held Beth, the little girl had only been a couple of minutes old. A year and a half later, she is much bigger.

On top of that, instinct and experience has Beth yearning for Shelby's touch now, not hers. For a moment, Beth cries out for the older woman and Quinn's heart just about stops. She hates that she is nothing more than a complete stranger to her own daughter.

"I don't think she likes me," Quinn panics.

Shelby looks up at her sympathetically. "Give her a minute," she encourages. "Just relax."

Quinn takes a deep breath and tries to heed Shelby's advice. It takes a moment, but after a while, Beth stops squirming and settles in.

The child looks back and forth between Shelby and Quinn like she is trying to figure out the missing pieces for herself. Finally, her eyes settle solely on Quinn. She looks inquisitively up at the blonde who is holding her. Quinn imagines that she is remembering where she had seen this woman before.

Quinn only just stops herself from crying. She doesn't want Beth to see her like that. She doesn't want that to be Beth's first memory of her. When do kids start really remembering things anyway?

Quinn hopes that it is not for a long time. She hopes this, because when all is said and done, the blonde wants tonight to be the last time that Beth ever confuses who her real mother is again.

Mostly, she hopes that Beth will never have to remember all the things that Quinn knows she has to do in order to get them there.

* * *

Quinn and Puck leave just after 7:30 because Shelby has to put Beth to bed after dinner.

Quinn doesn't want to leave. She has only been with Beth for a couple of hours and she has over a year to make up for. This is hardly a dent. Nothing aside from a lifetime with Beth will make up for the time she had already lost to Shelby.

"What are you doing?"

Puck waits until the elevator doors close on the two of them to call Quinn out. Even then, he hisses through a hushed whisper as though he is afraid that Shelby might still somehow overhear them.

"Taking the elevator?" Quinn replies, playing stupid.

"You're up to something," Puck accuses, bearing into the blonde.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Quinn crosses her arms.

"Beth is happy, Quinn," Puck argues as Quinn starts to punch at the button for the lobby repeatedly, trying to speed this elevator ride up. "She's happy and she's safe and she's in a home that loves her. I don't know what you're planning, but whatever it is don't ruin this for Beth."

"She's happy?" Quinn retorts. Her tone is sarcastic and malicious, and it makes even Puck edge away from the blonde nervously. "She isn't even with her real family! Do you really want our kid to grow up to be as screwed up as Rachel Berry is?"

Puck looks at Quinn with a raised eyebrow, his face dipping with confusion.

"What does any of this have to do with Rachel?" he asks.

Quinn swallows. She hadn't intended on bringing Rachel into this conversation, but it is a sign of just how much the brunette has been on her mind lately that she pops up anyway.

"Have you seen what Shelby did to her?" Quinn insists. Puck just looks at her blankly. Seriously though, is she really the only person around here who has noticed how Rachel has been walking around like a zombie lately? She has been reduced to half the girl she had been before Shelby's return. So has Quinn.

Quinn doesn't understand how Puck can continue to walk around like everything is fine and normal. He isn't blinking twice about Shelby being back. Neither is anybody else. How the hell has her life gotten to a point where her and Rachel Berry are the only two people in Lima acting rationally?

"What is going on with you?" Puck asks after a moment. He looks nonplussed by Quinn, like he is seeing her for the very first time.

"Nothing is going on with me!" Quinn counters. Despite her best efforts, her volume is rising. Why doesn't this elevator move any faster?

She is just thinking that she should have taken the stairs when the lift rattles to a halt.

Quinn edges her way out of the elevator before the doors can even open all the way. The lack of footsteps charging behind her tells her that Puck isn't stupid enough to try to follow.

Pushing past the very confused doorman, Quinn rounds out of Shelby's apartment and into the parking lot.

She needs to suppress these thoughts flooding inside of her mind, because the only thing she can afford to think about right now is Beth.

Yet no matter how hard she tries, the only thing she can consider is what her intentions for Beth might mean for Rachel.

* * *

There is a box with Quinn's name on it in her mailbox when she gets home from school Thursday.

It is smaller than Quinn thought it would be. In fact, it fits comfortably inside of the palm of her hand. It is also remarkably light despite the heaviness of the information it harnesses.

Quinn is still studying the plain, brown box when she puts her house key into the lock and pushes through the front door.

Her mother is still at work. The house is dark and is still a mess from the morning rush. Neither Quinn nor her mother are morning people. They are perpetually leaving their house in shambles.

Quinn knows that she shouldn't open the box. Technically, what is inside belongs to Rachel. Still, both Rachel and Quinn had agreed to put _her_ name on it which means that the federal offense of tampering with another person's mail shouldn't apply in this scenario.

She relies on this logic to excuse her curiosity and tears into the package like a rabid raccoon.

The kit inside is simple and small. There is the most ridiculous picture on the front of a man smiling down at a baby like the people who make this test are trying to convince both themselves and others that it hasn't ruined more lives than it has ever helped.

The instructions seem simple enough, and the note inside of the box guarantees results in two days or less. Quinn sucks in a deep breath, considering how incredible it is that after all this time, she will only have to wait two more days until she has all the information that she needs to start trying to get Beth back.

Trying to remember that this is about Rachel, not her, Quinn flings her backpack onto the empty bar stool and checks her watch. It is barely after three o'clock. She knows that Rachel and some of her other friends participating in the musical have rehearsal after school. Rachel wouldn't be home for hours.

The blonde's cellphone rings from her back pocket. The noise is ridiculously loud amidst the otherwise silence of the house and Quinn jumps back, so lost inside of her thoughts that the reminder that there is still a world out there moving forward while she is at a standstill strikes her like a truck.

"Shit…" Quinn curses the overreaction as the paternity test that she had been holding slips from her hands and falls to the floor.

She takes a deep breath, trying to remind herself that there is no need for her to be acting like this right now. It's not like this is her problem. The results of this test would give her life more meaning even if they would likely destroy Rachel's in the process.

Quinn swallows her trepidation, struggling to convince herself that she doesn't care about Rachel, that she cares about getting Beth back more as she pulls her still-ringing phone out of her pocket and answers it without even looking to see who is calling first.

"Hello?" she asks, trying to keep her voice neutral.

"Blondie," the simple reply comes. It's Jasmine, the unofficial leader of their band of Skanks.

Quinn has to actively suppress a sigh of disappointment. She has been trying to avoid the Skanks all day. She has been trying to avoid everybody.

"We're hitting up the liquor store on Seventh and Jefferson. You in?"

Jasmine extends the invite as Quinn looks down to check her watch again. She doesn't want to see the Skanks, but what she wants less is to sit in this house by herself for the next several hours waiting for Rachel to get out of musical rehearsal.

"Sure," Quinn agrees. She shoves the DNA test inside of her backpack before flinging it back across her shoulders. Her voice is unenthusiastic, her heart not into it. Luckily, the Skanks prefer this level of indifference that Quinn has come to base her entire life around.

"Meet us behind the dumpsters," Jasmine instructs. Quinn hangs up the phone without another word.

* * *

Quinn isn't in the mood to drink but she forces herself to be and slips a forty ounce of booze into her backpack with the rest of the Skanks before sneaking past the old man behind the counter without question.

The drink is hardly more than $4, and Old Man Jones can hardly remember his own name, yet alone remember to card high schoolers, but stealing alcohol has become a hobby out of principle, not economics.

After they leave the store, they sit behind it in the alleyway. Jasmine is sitting on top of the dumpster like a queen on her throne. Meanwhile, Quinn is propped up against the brick wall, sipping at her disgustingly warm malt beverage slowly.

Her backpack hangs loosely off her shoulder, reminding Quinn that she has much more important things to worry about aside from getting drunk on a Thursday afternoon.

Quinn keeps the attention off of herself. Every time she knows that the Skanks aren't looking, she dumps a little bit of her beer out behind the dumpster, only pretending to drink it.

"Earth to Fabray."

"Huh?" Quinn gasps back to attention when she realizes that despite her best efforts, the entire group is now staring at her.

"You're in outer space today, Blondie," Jasmine comments. She takes a swig from her beer and it drains the bottle. "What did you take before you came here? More importantly, why didn't you bring any to share?"

"I didn't take anything," Quinn insists, forcing another sip of her drink, trying to prove something.

She is _always_ trying to prove something.

"Sure," Jasmine smirks at her. She doesn't believe her, and Quinn knows that she is going to have to come up with something fast or else risk Jasmine demanding more out of her.

"I'm thinking about trying to get my daughter back," Quinn admits before she can think that maybe she shouldn't.

Quinn feels all eyes turn onto her. They look interested at the revelation, like Quinn had just provided them the bait that they need to proceed.

Quinn swallows against the additional attention. Her goal of the day was to keep under the radar, yet somehow, she had ended up doing the exact opposite.

"Where is she?"

"With her adoptive family," Quinn mutters. She almost mentions Shelby by name but stops herself. She hates Shelby, but not even she hates her enough to put her on the wrong end of the Skanks' radar.

"Adoption is overrated," one of the Skanks comments.

Quinn looks up at her. This particular girl has been in foster care her entire life. Clearly, it has worked out very well for her.

"Got anything in mind?" Jasmine asks.

Quinn looks down at her fingers and starts to play with them carefully. She doesn't want to look at these girls standing in front of her because the only thing that she can picture when she does is Beth ending up just like them.

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that it is not them Quinn is afraid Beth will end up like. It's her.

"Kind of," Quinn murmurs, but she provides no further details.

"We could get involved," Jasmine suggests with a shrug. "I'm very experienced with delivering messages if you know what I mean."

Quinn looks up at Jasmine. She knows exactly what she means.

"I'll keep that in mind," Quinn tells the girl, but she knows that this is not an option that she will ever actually consider.

When her cell starts to ring again, Quinn finds that she is actually grateful for the distraction. She isn't sure how much longer she can keep on this topic without being forced to reveal much more than she intends to tell anybody.

Unfortunately, she cannot answer her phone fast enough to avoid Jasmine seeing the name _Rachel Berry_ displayed across the screen.

"Why is Rachel Berry calling your phone?" she asks with a snort of distaste.

"It's nothing," Quinn says quickly, folding the phone into her chest. "We're partners for some AP Bio project."

"Why do you even bother with that shit, Fabray?" Quinn is grilled. Meanwhile, her phone drones on and on and on.

"I told you. I'm trying to get my daughter back. It's all part of the plan."

"Why don't you just make Berry do all the work and put your name on it?"

"Little Ms. Perfect would never go for that," one of her Skank friends laughs, sparing Quinn the need to come up with a good excuse. Sensing the need to join in, Quinn laughs alongside of them, desperate to cover up just how strangled the noise sounds.

"We can make her go for it."

Quinn doesn't know who makes the suggestion but the agreement that follows is universal and Quinn is very aware of the fact that every girl around her is starting to squeeze their fingers menacingly into fists as though in preparation.

"It's fine, just leave her alone," Quinn mutters, waving her friends off as her cellphone silences inside of her hands.

"What are you two like girlfriends now or something?" Jasmine presses, hopping down from the dumpster.

She stands threateningly in front of Quinn, hovering. Jasmine is nearly an entire foot taller than the blonde and her posture is ominous.

Quinn swallows. If the mere idea of being friends with someone like Rachel is considered a crime in the eyes of the Skanks, then how will Quinn get away with everything that she knows is to come next without them interfering?

"We're not girlfriends," Quinn rolls her eyes. She forces a brave face as she stares at the formidable Skank in front of her, trying to be convincing.

It isn't a lie. Her and Rachel are nothing. They aren't even friends. Rachel and Quinn just happened to be going through a period of emotional vulnerability at the exact same time. That's it.

But Quinn can't very well tell Jasmine and her Skanks that.

"I have to go," Quinn insists, shouldering past the taller girl. "I'll catch up with you guys later."

"You're going soft on us, Fabray!" Jasmine calls back to her.

"Maybe…" Quinn mutters, but her voice is low enough that only she can hear it as she turns down the sidewalk towards her car.

She hits the redial button on her cellphone, calling Rachel back.

"I'm home," Rachel answers within seconds. She sounds breathless with nervous anticipation. She doesn't even give Quinn the opportunity to say hello. "Did it come?"

"It came," Quinn answers, ducking into her car before flipping the keys over in the ignition. "I'll be over in ten."

* * *

It's almost six o'clock by the time Quinn arrives at Rachel's but it is a testament to the changing seasons that it is already starting to get dark outside.

The Berry's house is lit up like a Christmas tree. There are so many lights on the front porch that it looks like a stage. On a normal day, Quinn would have a lot to say about this but today, she finds that she isn't in the mood for jokes.

Hiking her backpack a little bit higher on her shoulders, Quinn tucks a short strand of hair behind her ear before ringing the doorbell.

"Well, if it isn't Quinn Fabray."

It is not the high-pitched, familiar voice that Quinn had been expecting, but the deeper, more mature voice of Rachel's father; the same one who had walked in on her and Rachel yesterday right after they had ordered the kit currently burning a hole through her backpack.

"Twice in two days, this must be a new record."

"H-hi, Mr. Berry," Quinn stutters uncomfortably, hugging the straps of her backpack a little bit closer. "Is Rachel home? I just have to drop some things off for her so that she can do her half of our math project."

"History," the man comments. Quinn cocks her head, wondering if this is some kind of a riddle.

"I'm sorry?"

"You said yesterday that the two of you were working on a history project."

Quinn coughs nervously, trying to buy her time to get her stories straight.

"We're in a lot of classes together this year," the blonde lies. "AP's and stuff."

"Of course." Rachel's father nods his head, but Quinn knows that he doesn't believe her.

"Who is it, Daddy?"

Quinn is just starting to think that she is about to be exposed when Rachel comes up behind her father to save her.

"It's your friend Quinn, Star," he answers, moving out of the doorway so that Rachel can see for herself. "She says that she has some things to drop off to you for school."

"I know. I called her," Rachel beams at her father. It is the fakest smile that Quinn has ever seen. She should know. She's the expert on fake smiles.

Her father, however, doesn't seem to notice.

"Well, don't be too long," the man warns. "You don't want your dinner to get cold."

"We won't be, Daddy!" Rachel calls after him as he retreats back into the house. She keeps that fake smile plastered on her face until she is certain he is gone. When he finally is, her face changes completely.

"Come on," Rachel whispers, grabbing onto Quinn's hand, dragging the blonde hurriedly up the stairs.

"Do you have it?" the brunette asks in a hushed tone the moment her bedroom door is safely shut.

"Of course," Quinn nods. "And stop making this sound like a freaking drug deal."

Rachel rolls her eyes but remains silent as Quinn flips her backpack over her head and opens the zipper. She digs through the bag for only a moment, emerging with the small box that she immediately hands over to Rachel.

"It's tiny," Rachel comments, turning the box inside of her hands as though that might somehow change its contents. Quinn nods but she does not say anything. She doesn't tell Rachel that this had been her first thought as well. "Are you sure that this is everything?"

"There's really not much to it," Quinn shrugs. "You just put your samples in the little tubes they give you and send it back. You already paid for the lab fee and everything. The rest is pretty straight forward. They'll send you the results in a day or two."

Rachel nods her head through a deep breath, but her eyes don't leave the package inside her hands. She is staring at it as though it made of pure gold.

"Christ Berry, the thing is going to be expired by the time you open it," Quinn accuses, snatching the package out of Rachel's hands. "It's a paternity test, not the directions to Atlantis."

"Will you keep your voice down?" Rachel hisses at Quinn as the blonde tears into the box. "My dads are right downstairs."

"Relax, the door is closed," Quinn reminds Rachel. "Besides, I, unlike you, am an expert at hiding things from parents."

Rachel sighs, but she doesn't question Quinn any further as the blonde dumps the contents of the box out on top of Rachel's perfectly made bed.

"Okay, it says here that all you need to do is to collect hair samples from yourself and all your suspected fathers," Quinn tells Rachel, reading off the instruction sheet from inside the box.

"All of my suspected fathers?" Rachel snorts. "This is ridiculous."

"Label the samples, put them in the pre-addressed envelope, and send it back in the mail," Quinn continues, ignoring Rachel. "That's it. It says here that the whole thing shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Are you ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Rachel takes a deep breath before holding her hand out to Quinn. "Give me the first vial."

Quinn hands the brunette the small tube labeled _Child_ and watches as Rachel reaches up and pulls a couple strands of her own hair out by the root.

"Now you just need one from each of your fathers," Quinn explains as Rachel shoves her own hair into the vial before placing the stopper over it.

Rachel and Quinn sneak into Rachel's fathers bedroom. Quinn stands guard at the doorway as Rachel plucks hair out of each of their hairbrushes and deposits the samples into separate vials. Within five minutes, Rachel is handing a sealed envelope filled with all three test tubes over to Quinn.

"Will you drop this off in the mailbox on your way home?" the brunette asks Quinn.

"Sure," Quinn nods, tucking the envelope safely back into of her backpack.

"Don't forget," Rachel demands. Quinn only rolls her eyes.

"Of course I won't forget," she insists. "I'm not a complete moron."

Quinn lets Rachel guide her back down the stairs.

The sound of conversation is wafting in from the dining room. Rachel's fathers are talking amongst themselves. It sounds pleasant and casual and hardly fits the mood that either one of the girls is in right now.

"Are you girls all set?" Quinn hears Rachel's father - her other father - call to them from the dining room.

A whisper of a laugh remains inside of his voice from whatever him and his husband had been discussing earlier. Rachel seems unfazed by it but for some reason, it shakes Quinn. The blonde finds it amazing that despite their caution, despite their overprotective nature, they have no idea about any of this.

They will never see it coming.

"Yes Daddy, Quinn was just leaving," Rachel calls back to him but moves a little bit faster to shuttle Quinn out of the house before things around here can get even weirder.

"Okay, goodbye Quinn!"

"Bye Mr. and Mr. Berry," Quinn calls out to them as Rachel opens the front door.

"Don't forget," Rachel whispers seriously to Quinn as she pushes the blonde out of her house.

"I won't," Quinn promises. She really hates that Rachel thinks that she needs the constant reminder. Does Rachel really have such little trust in her?

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that Rachel might have a point.

With one final nod, Rachel closes the front door firmly, separating the two girls.

Quinn lets out a sigh and lingers on the Berry's front porch for a moment.

She doesn't know why she is feeling like this. She doesn't even really know exactly what it is that she is feeling at all. The only thing that she does know for certain is that Rachel Berry is doing something to her emotional state right now. As fragile as that has been lately, for the first time in months, Quinn feels like she isn't totally alone in this vast expanse of the universe.

And despite how quickly Quinn knows she has a tendency to screw things up, she has a gut feeling that for once in her life, she really needs to work to make this envelope inside her hands count for something.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey everybody! So sorry for the delay on this chapter. I was suffering from a serious case of writer's block which hopefully is behind me.**

 **I just wanted to quickly respond to a couple of the questions/concerns some of you left. First off, there will be no Puck/Shelby relationship story line in this story because ew. There will certainly be more moments between Rachel and Shelby coming up (including a few in this chapter). There relationship will become an important part of Rachel navigating through this new world she's found herself in. Lastly, the plot with Quinn trying to get Beth back will not be a major part of this story nor will it be the same as it was on the show because I agree that it was done terribly strictly to make Quinn look like an awful person. In this story, it will revolve more around Quinn trying to figure both herself out as well as her relationship with Rachel, Shelby and Beth.**

 **That's all I've got for now. Thanks everybody for being patient with me. If you have any more questions/concerns/whatevers feel free to leave them behind. Thanks again!**

* * *

 **Chapter 5** **:**

Rachel gets cornered by Finn in the senior hallway after school on Friday while she is looking for Shelby.

"Hey, what are you doing this weekend?"

He sneaks up behind her to ask the question. His voice sounds almost desperate. Rachel has been ignoring him for almost two straight weeks now. Rachel feels bad about this. It isn't Finn's fault, she just hasn't had time to consider social calls when all the answers about her existence are floating around out there somewhere, waiting for her to find them.

"I… um… My dads are out of town this weekend," Rachel tells Finn. This part is the truth. Her fathers had called out sick from their respective jobs this morning, packed their bags, and set off to spend their anniversary weekend two hours away in Reno Beach.

"They don't really want me hanging out anywhere with them not home." That part is the lie. Rachel isn't exactly confined to her house with them gone, but this might be her only opportunity to do some snooping, searching for clues regarding her lineage without them catching her.

"You've never had to stay home while they were away before," Finn accuses, his voice dripping. He sounds pained by his girlfriend's sudden distance. Rachel is only vaguely aware that this is probably not a good sign for the future of their relationship.

Before Rachel has to make an excuse, she spots Shelby moving swiftly through the sea of students at the other end of the hallway.

"I have to go, Finn!" Rachel ignores him. Finn does not even have time to protest. He blinks and Rachel is gone.

Rachel pushes through the crowded hallway, trying to get to Shelby before the woman can disappear like they all know she has a tendency to do.

Utilizing Shelby in her quest for answers had been Quinn's idea.

Rachel wasn't so sure at first, but Quinn had insisted, and the more Rachel thought about it the more she realized that the blonde has a point. Shelby is probably the only key to the answers that she is looking for.

Rachel's fathers would not budge, Rachel and Quinn had agreed on that. This is a secret that they have been lying to Rachel's face about for nearly eighteen years. For them, it would remain a fortress and Rachel would be much better off leaving them in the dark.

But Shelby…

Shelby is already emotionally vulnerable when it comes to Rachel. Quinn seems confident that the woman would crack with minimal pressure. Besides, after the debacle that had happened their sophomore year, Shelby owed Rachel big time.

The catch is that using Shelby as a resource means that Rachel will have to keep wearing her show face for the time being. She has to continue to pretend that everything is okay. She has to pretend that she is still willing to try to salvage her relationship with Shelby.

This, Rachel knows, will be the hard part.

"Ms. Corcoran, wait!"

Rachel catches Shelby just before the woman can slip out of the west entrance towards the teacher's parking lot. When she turns around and sees that it is Rachel actively seeking her for a change, her entire face glows. She looks relieved. As far as Shelby knows, the two of them are still in good-standing. For the time being, Rachel knows she has to keep pretending.

"Are you okay, Rachel?" Shelby asks.

Rachel swallows and flattens her clammy palms against her dress, buying herself some time.

She wants to tell Shelby that she is not okay. She wants to scream, to bombard Shelby, to tell her what she knows and demand answers in return.

But she knows she can't do that. Shelby is a smart woman. That meant that Rachel would have to be smart, too.

"I was wondering if I could uh… talk to you for a minute," the young brunette finally manages.

"Of course," Shelby nods, providing Rachel her full attention, waiting.

Rachel's eyes dart back and forth as multitudes of students shuttle out of the school for the weekend, weaving around the duo like they are stones in a river. Rachel knows that they are probably not paying attention to the likes of her, but at the same time she can't help but to feel paranoid. She _is_ new to this whole deceit game, after all.

"Can we go somewhere private?" Rachel asks shyly. "It's kind of personal."

"Of course," Shelby breathes with a nod. She looks curious, if not a little bit nervous about what Rachel has to say.

Quickly, the woman shuttles the younger girl into a nearby classroom. She flips the light switch, shrouding the room with light before turning towards Rachel with a look of concern on her face.

"What's going on? Is everything alright?"

"Everything is fine…" Rachel tells Shelby but pauses in the reminder that everything is _not_ fine. This conversation is already going all wrong and Rachel knows she is going to have to screw her head back on fast or else risk ruining her plan before she can even get started. "I just… I'm applying to the New York Academy of Fine Arts this year. I recently got started on my application."

This is another lie. The truth is that all of Rachel's college applications have been on the backburner recently.

Despite the color-coded timeline that she had meticulously worked on all summer, detailing where she should be in her application process on a day-by-day basis, she has barely even glanced at her applications. She knows that she is placing her future in a precarious position with her procrastination, she just can't bring herself to care.

"That's an incredibly school, Rachel. You're a remarkably talented girl. I'm sure you'll have no problem getting into NYADA." Shelby nods her head with an air of approval. There is a sense of pride inside her voice that makes Rachel falter for a moment, just like she always does when any sort of a personal connection is made between her and her estranged mother.

"Me too," Rachel nods, pulling herself together. Her confidence makes Shelby laugh like her personality never ceases to amaze her. The older woman feels like she is staring into a crystal ball every time she looks at Rachel, catching tiny glimpses of her past.

Rachel tries to ignore it. She has been struggling not to humanize this woman, but Shelby seems to know exactly how to get inside of her head whether she is trying to or not.

"I still have to be sure though," Rachel forces herself to get to the point. "I want you to coach me privately."

"Me?" the woman raises a shocked eyebrow. She even goes so far as to look over her shoulder to see if there is somebody else in the room who Rachel might be asking.

"You were the best glee coach in the country for years," Rachel shrugs, downplaying her request. "Who else?"

"I don't know, Rachel…" Shelby shakes her head uncertainly.

"Please, Shelby! There's nobody else!" Rachel's lips fold inwards desperately. She needs this to work, and Shelby has no idea how badly.

Shelby pauses and Rachel can tell she is considering her. Rachel's heart seizes expectantly. She feels invincible in the success.

"Do your dads know that you're asking me this?" Shelby finally asks after a long moment.

"Should they?" Rachel frowns.

"I would feel a lot better about it if they did," Shelby nods. She has already explained this to Rachel once.

"I'll talk to them tonight," Rachel lies. Her fathers would not be home until Sunday night. Even if they _were_ home, Rachel would never tell them about this. It would be like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. It would ruin everything.

"I want a permission slip," Rachel tells her, crossing her arms over her chest. Rachel's eyebrows shoot into her hairline.

"Seriously?" the girl groans. Shelby's persistence is proving to make her life even more difficult. Why did she care so much all of a sudden?

"Look who you're talking to, Rachel," Shelby offers a small laugh. "You're literally me. I know all the tricks."

Rachel has to bite her tongue against telling Shelby that she doesn't know _all_ of Rachel's tricks.

"Fine," she forces herself to agree. What other choice does she have? Now, on top of trying to find out who her real father is, she is going to have to type up some phony permission slip and forge one of her father's signatures. "But if they sign something will you help me?"

Shelby nods her head definitively. "I would be honored."

"Thanks," Rachel forces a smile. "I'll meet you on Monday after school in the auditorium."

"I'll meet you on Monday," Shelby agrees with a nod.

Rachel ducks out of the classroom before she can ruin all the progress she just made. This conversation had gone much better than even she thought it would. There's no reason for her to be putting that in jeopardy.

Rachel slips back into the hallway with a broad smile on her face. She feels invincible now and knows that she owes that to Quinn.

The blonde was right. Shelby had fallen easily to her guilt and with her as Rachel's unwitting accomplice, Rachel knows that it is only a matter of time before the secrets start pouring in.

* * *

Rachel has to wait until Saturday for the results of her DNA test to arrive in the mail.

It comes in an envelope with her name on it and no return address, wedged between a stack of bills and catalogs.

She waits until she is alone inside of her living room to rip open the envelope. Her eyes scan the paper quickly. The answer that she has known all along is written in bold lettering right across the top.

Her fathers are not who they say they are. They never have been.

The information burns a hole inside of her chest. Rachel uses this for motivation. She spends the entire weekend ignoring everybody and turning her home inside out for answers.

It is a gorgeous weekend, sunny and unseasonably warm, but Rachel doesn't so much as step outside. Instead, she searches her fathers' bedroom, the basement, the attic, her Daddy Hiram's home office…

They all prove to be dead ends.

The closest thing to worthwhile information she finds is her birth certificate, which is buried at the bottom of a filing cabinet in her basement.

The document lists Shelby as her mother, but Hiram as her father and Rachel can't help but to wonder just how deep this conspiracy stretches.

Rachel wants to skip school on Monday and continue searching, but both of her fathers are working from home after returning late Sunday night from their anniversary trip.

Rachel doesn't want to go to school, but she certainly doesn't want to hang out with her fathers all day either, so reluctantly, she slips out of the house early and makes her way towards William McKinley.

After dropping the forged permission slip for private singing rehearsals off in Shelby's mailbox, Rachel makes her way towards her locker in order to gather her books for first period biology class.

She just manages to get a hand on them when somebody in a varsity jacket rushes past her and knocks them all to the floor.

The hallways are packed as the first bell looms nearer and the culprit slips into the crowd easily before Rachel can even think to identify him.

With a groan of frustration, Rachel bends over to retrieve her belongings. She is not in the mood for this today.

Actually, she is not in the mood for this any day. The difference is that on any other day, she could just hold her head up and remind herself that in just a few months, she will be past these juvenile antics and on her way to New York.

Lately, she is not so sure even about that.

Her biology text is face down on the floor, wide-open with the pages crinkled underneath one other. Loose papers have flown out of her notebook, including her homework which she had hastily completed last night only after she heard her fathers come home and knew she could no longer buy her time searching her house.

She is almost finished collecting her belongings when she feels somebody come up behind her and shove her hard.

A shriek escapes Rachel's mouth and she feels her normally perfect balance falter, unprepared for the blow. She falls forward, her forehead bouncing hard off the linoleum. She drops the books she had only just picked up. They go flying for the second time in as many minutes.

The laughter starts just as Rachel is pulling herself back to her feet. She is fully expecting to see a group of varsity jackets pointing and laughing and taking credit for her humiliation, but it is not the jocks staring back at her.

It is the Skanks.

Rachel's eyes narrow in on the small group. She does not see Quinn among them and can't help but wonder if the blonde knows or even cares that her new friends seem to have made the decision to start targeting her.

With that thought in mind, Rachel feels that final thread inside of her snap.

"What the hell?" she shouts angrily towards The Skanks.

None of them had been expecting a retaliation. They had just wanted their moment of fun, just like they had in the cafeteria that day when Rachel had ended up wearing her lunch. They would laugh and jeer for a moment, and then they would move on to the next, unfortunate soul.

People are normally not so bold when it comes to The Skanks. Nobody in their right mind would ever think to do what Rachel had done. But Rachel is not in her right mind. She is teeming for revenge and she doesn't care who she gets it against. Or if it ends up killing her in the process.

Even as the Skanks start to circle around her menacingly, silently promising that she is now going to walk away from this with much more than a bruised forehead, she regrets nothing.

"Rachel Berry, right?" one of the Skanks finally asks after sizing her up for a moment.

"Yeah," Rachel swallows, but is very proud of how steady her voice remains.

"Yeah, I know you," the girl nods with a malicious smirk. "You're friends with Quinn."

"Not really…" Rachel mumbles. She isn't entirely sure what she would call her relationship with Quinn, but she is not about to explain herself to the Skanks. "We're just lab partners. And speaking of, I'm late for class."

Rachel attempts to shoulder past the girl, but she does not budge. Instead, she snaps her fingers and the gang circles tighter around Rachel, boxing her in. The young brunette looks up at their leader, suspicious of her intentions and just a little bit terrified.

"You have some spunk, who would of thought?" Rachel knows immediately that she should not take this as a compliment. It is nothing less than a threat. "Just remember that that can get you into trouble if you're not too careful."

"I'm not afraid of you," Rachel tells the girl before she can remind herself that she would be in a better position to keep her mouth shut.

The tiny brunette is used to be being bold, but this is an entirely different kind of brazenness. This completely defies personal safety. The part that frightens Rachel the most is how little she cares.

"Well, you should be," the girl reminds her. Her voice is quiet yet punctuated. "If you see your little girlfriend running around, tell her that we're looking for her. By the way, you're bleeding."

She nods up to Rachel's forehead where the girl had hit the ground.

Rachel doesn't make a move to investigate this claim. She is afraid that if she so much as blinks with this Skank so close, she will be blindsided.

But the attack never comes. Instead, their leader backs away from Rachel. The rest of the group follows, sauntering away from her like over-sized ducklings.

It is only after they're gone that Rachel lifts her hand to prod at her throbbing forehead. When she looks, the pads of her fingers are wet with blood. Rachel stares at the sticky, red substance shining against her fingertips and allows the frustration to seep inside of her.

Somehow, instead of wanting to run away and cry like she normally would, Rachel only finds her rage fueled.

How is it possible that these are the opening weeks of what was supposed to be the best year of her life?

While everybody else rushes off to class, Rachel retreats to the bathroom to splash some water over her face and clean off the blood.

The cut is not bad, but there is already a goose egg forming at her hairline and Rachel knows it will not be long before it starts to bruise. She does what she can to cover it up for the time being, but by the time she leaves the girl's bathroom, it is so far into first period that she knows it would be a waste of time to try to make it to class.

Rachel has never skipped in her life. She has no idea what to do with all this extra time but makes her way outside. She doesn't want to get caught by a teacher who might question why she is aimlessly wandering the halls when she should be in biology.

Apparently, she is not the only student with this idea. Rachel spots Quinn outside the west entrance, sitting on top of an empty lunch table overlooking the athletic fields, a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

The two girls seem to be the only people out here. For a moment, it creates the illusion that they are the only two people left in the entire world.

Rachel swallows. Her and Quinn seems to have formed an attraction for one another lately akin to the world's most powerful magnet. Somehow, they always managed to find themselves in one another's company.

Rachel takes advantage of Quinn not noticing her right away to carefully observe the blonde. Under the guise of solitude, Quinn is letting her emotions shine inside of the hazel eyes that normally put up such a high wall.

"You're skipping too?" Rachel finally calls out to Quinn. She approaches the blonde slowly, but when Quinn turns to face her, she finds that she has already allowed her eyes to harden over again. Rachel knows she will never be able to get back that same level of honesty that Quinn can only ever seem to display when she thinks nobody is looking.

"I saw you weren't there," Quinn answers. "I figured there's no point staying if you weren't around to give me all the answers."

"I never give you the answers," Rachel reminds Quinn, climbing on top of the lunch table to sit next to Quinn.

Quinn only shrugs and the duo settles into silence.

"What happened to you?" Quinn asks after a moment, trying to sound indifferent as she nods up towards Rachel's disheveled appearance and bruised forehead.

"Your new friends is what happened to me," Rachel grumbles. "The Skanks attacked me in the hallway today. They threatened me, too."

"They wouldn't do that," Quinn insists, relentless in her need to defend her decisions.

Rachel frowns at Quinn. On the very first day of school, Quinn had told her to stop acting so naïve around Shelby. Now, Rachel feels an obligation to do the same for Quinn when it came to the Skanks.

"Open your eyes, Quinn," Rachel sighs. Her exasperation is clear. She is stunned by Quinn's lack of a grip on her reality.

Then again, Rachel can't help but feel that that is a bold claim coming from her given her current position.

"The Skanks are bullies," Rachel continues when Quinn says nothing. "What else do you think they would want with an ex-cheerleader in a vulnerable position with brains, a nice car, and a daddy with a fat alimony payment? They're using you, and you're too smart to keep falling for it."

Rachel glares at the blonde for the moment, trying to hammer her point home. The brunette's eyes are emotional but committed. She looks the same way that she used to whenever she was talking about glee or Broadway or NYADA. Lately, all that energy is being used up on stopping Quinn from self-destructing or finding out who her real father is. There's no room for anything else.

Quinn's face shrinks, falling away from the extra attention. Rachel is right. She _is_ too smart for this. She is too smart for a lot of the things that she is doing; hanging around The Skanks, refusing to listen to her conscience, manipulating Shelby, Puck, and now Rachel for her own selfish means...

Quinn has nothing to say to Rachel that can provide a decent explanation. She cannot even explain any of this to herself. Rachel looks disappointed by the silence.

"Whatever," the brunette breathes, shaking her head. She pulls herself off the lunch table, prepared to walk away from Quinn and all her problems. She is having a hard enough time coping with her own problems. She doesn't have the energy to watch Quinn fall down that same destructive path.

Quinn feels her heart speed up watching Rachel walk away from her.

She doesn't know why she is always trying so hard to put on that same front in front of Rachel that she wears for everybody else. Rachel is hardly like everybody else. Quinn knows that now.

"Rachel, wait!"

Quinn fumbles over an excuse to make Rachel stay. Whenever she is talking to the brunette lately, she feels like she is learning how to speak for the first time all over again. She can never seem to find the right words when it counts.

Rachel has become a complete maze to her, complex in its navigation. Unfortunately for Quinn, she is still getting used to the idea that it might be worth the effort to find the prize at the end of this puzzle.

"I don't have time for this Quinn," Rachel sighs.

The truth is that she has plenty of time. Both girls know that there is still twenty minutes until next period. What Rachel means is that she doesn't have the patience. She is constantly giving Quinn last chances when she wouldn't be giving other people the time of day.

There is just something about the blonde that she just cannot seem to stay away from.

"I just… are you sure that you're okay?" Quinn finally asks, swallowing around her discomfort. It is a loaded question. Both Quinn and Rachel know that Rachel is in fact _not_ okay. Neither of them are.

"Why do you want to know?" Rachel sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. "Clearly you don't care."

The blonde hesitates. The silence that hovers inside of the space between their conversation is deafening and Rachel doesn't know how to interpret that.

"You've just been… I don't know… not you," Quinn tells the girl. "It's weird being around you without you acting like a Nazi all the time. I think you've given me Stockholm Syndrome."

Rachel smirks. The more sarcastic Quinn is with her, the more Rachel believes her. The blonde's defensiveness is a hallmark of her personality. Rachel doesn't know why the blonde is so afraid of people finding out that she is actually capable of having feelings.

"Maybe we can go to therapy together," Rachel suggests. She is only half joking.

"Ugh, no thanks. I'm already traumatized enough without having to listen to any more of your issues."

"Suit yourself," Rachel shrugs before turning away towards the school again.

"Rachel!" Quinn calls back to the brunette again.

Rachel takes a deep breath and turns back around to stare at Quinn expectantly.

Her dark eyes bear into Quinn's much lighter ones, searching for an explanation. She watches Quinn take a deep breath, searching for the right thing to say. She doesn't need Rachel giving up on her just like everybody else has.

"I do care, alright?" the blonde finally admits. "I just… I guess I just never really had anybody to show me how to express that. I've never really had anybody to express that _to_. I'm working on it."

Rachel nods slowly, placing her hands on her hips.

"I'm working on it too," the brunette reciprocates.

Quinn looks up at the girl who she had once considered her biggest enemy.

That was in a different time, now. That world, the one that Quinn had once lorded over, is now gone. Instead, it belongs to another blonde-haired, doe-eyed girl who too will one day realize that being on the top of a cheerleading pyramid and dating the right football boy still isn't enough to counter the tendency of the world to turn on you.

"I have to go, Quinn," Rachel sighs after a long moment. "I can't miss another class."

"I'm surprised you even missed one," Quinn offers the brunette a small smirk, which she graciously returns.

"Are you coming?" she asks Quinn, unsurprised when the blonde only gives her a sad smile and a shake of her head.

"Not yet," Quinn tells Rachel. "Maybe in a little bit."

Rachel stares at the blonde for a long moment. For a while, Quinn is afraid that she is about to get a classic Rachel Berry lecture for continuing to skip class, but Rachel doesn't seem to have it in her. Instead, she nods her head like she understands exactly how it feels to have to be alone with your own thoughts for a while.

"Just don't waste away out here, okay?" Rachel tells her. It is the only warning that she gives Quinn and the blonde feels an even further appreciation for Rachel Berry swell inside of her chest.

"I'll try," Quinn answers with the smallest hint of a smile. It is the best that she can promise. "You don't waste away in there."

"I'll try," the brunette counters. Then, without another word, she turns away from Quinn, making her way back towards the school.

* * *

Rachel is more than nervous when she walks into the auditorium for her first rehearsal with Shelby.

She tries to tell herself not to be. She tries to tell herself that Shelby is probably just as nervous as she is, but when she walks into the darkened room, Shelby is already sitting at the piano, messing around with a string of chords that Rachel doesn't recognize.

The woman seems indifferent towards this arrangement. She looks like she is taking it just as Rachel had presented it - a business deal - and Rachel wonders if she should have tried to make it more personal when she'd made the offer.

When she finally spots Rachel, she looks at the girl with a note of anger on her face.

"You're late," she tells Rachel sharply.

The young brunette flushes and turns her eyes to the floor, embarrassed. She should have known that Shelby wouldn't put away that infamous Coach Corcoran persona just because it was her.

"Yeah… I'm sorry." Rachel doesn't even bother trying to come up with an excuse. Instead, she stares at the woman hard and tries to pretend like nothing is different between them.

She watches Shelby stand from the piano and walk to the edge of the stage where she hovers above Rachel and frowns at her.

For a moment, Rachel thinks that Shelby is going to lecture her for her tardiness, but the woman falters before a single word can escape.

Rachel senses her mother's discomfort. She feels it too. They are both learning each other, having basically been strangers before this. They're interactions are infused with tension that Rachel once hoped would go away with time, but now is not so sure.

Instead of yelling at her for being late, Shelby studies her daughter very carefully.

Shelby accepts that she doesn't know Rachel nearly as much as she would like to, but she knows her enough to understand that today, Rachel looks different.

She still looks like her, so much so that it takes Shelby's breath away every time she looks at her, but the light that makes Rachel, _Rachel_ simply is no longer there.

The girl's chin is tucked deep inside of her chest, eyes trained to the ground. Dull brown hair falls in front of her face like a veil. Her shoulders are hunched so far forward that Shelby wonders how she is even keeping her balance.

The maternal instinct that she has been struggling to ignore every time Rachel is in her vicinity is reaching up and strangling her.

"Are you okay, Rachel?" Shelby swallows, hoping she is not over-stepping her boundaries.

When Rachel finally does look up at her mother, the first thing that Shelby notices is the large bruise circling the top of her forehead. It is a fresh mark, Shelby can tell, because it is such an angry shade of purple that it almost looks black.

"What happened?" Shelby gasps, jumping down from the stage to get a closer look.

"It's nothing," Rachel sighs. "Some stupid girls ganged up on me. I'm used to it. Don't worry about it."

"A group of girls did this to you? At school?" Shelby presses.

Rachel frowns at her. She wishes that Shelby would just drop this like she has dropped everything else that has to do with her over the years.

"It's not a big deal," Rachel insists. "Besides, this school doesn't care about things like that. If you're gonna work here, you should probably learn not to waste your breath. Can we start our rehearsal now?"

Rachel knows that she has to move past this topic. She can feel that coil inside of her start to tighten again and while every conversation with Shelby felt like a battle, the girl now knows that if she is going to win this war, she is going to have to start winning a few of the skirmishes too.

That meant keeping her cool. It meant forcing Shelby to see her as a much stronger woman with a much stronger back than she had been a year and a half ago.

"Fine," Shelby concedes. Rachel knew that she would never press her. That is what she is relying on once the time finally does come to start asking the hard questions. "What do you want to work on?"

"How much do you know about dance?" Rachel asks the woman whose eyebrows fly high into her hairline.

"Dance?"

"I'm good in comparison to most of the New Directions, but I still think that it's the thing holding me back the most," Rachel admits, forcing herself back into character, just like she had practiced. "I'm borderline flat-footed."

"You get that from my mother's side of the family, I'm afraid." Shelby lets out a choked laugh, but Rachel just stares at her.

Shelby's face falls. She watches Rachel's reaction and realizes, with a burst of terror, the mistake she had just made.

"I am so sorry, Rachel," Shelby apologizes profusely.

Rachel feels her face fall. Shelby has always been the wave that she could never conquer, but she doesn't know why something so seemingly simple as a reference to her maternal relatives feels like a knife to her gut.

But she can't let Shelby see that. Instead, she has to plant her feet in the sand and take her opening. Her entire existence might depend on it.

"Does perfect pitch run in your family, too?" Rachel swallows and asks on a whim, letting Shelby off the hook. "It's just… I read somewhere that it was genetic. I thought that maybe…"

"Rachel," Shelby nods at her, smiling proudly. She looks relieved that she hadn't just inadvertently pushed her daughter further away. She has no idea. "Every woman in my family has had perfect pitch since the Revolution."

* * *

The two of them rehearse for hours.

Rachel knows that she would be foolish to press for answers this early into her relationship with Shelby, so she figures she might as well get some practical use out of their rehearsal time.

Besides, she can't pretend like it doesn't feel nice to finally be able to share something with her mother aside from genetics.

"Here."

Rachel is stretching against the piano after Shelby finally gives her a break after guiding her through exhaustive dance exercises she'd remembered from her Vocal Adrenaline days when her mother tosses a water bottle at her.

Rachel smiles shyly at her mother and uncaps the bottle, taking a tentative sip.

"You okay?" Shelby asks after a moment.

Rachel looks up at the woman, forcing herself to straighten up.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asks, and Shelby's entire face changes in a way that tells Rachel that she is not simply talking about their rehearsal.

"I heard a few teachers talking in the lounge at lunch," Shelby admits. Rachel can tell that she has been waiting to bring this up. "Apparently, you weren't in your biology class this morning. Neither was Quinn."

"Did you invite me hear just to lecture me about my class attendance?" Rachel accuses defensively.

"I'm just worried," Shelby shakes her head. "And if I remember correctly, you're the one who invited me."

Rachel swallows any possible retort. Inside of this dark auditorium, she is starting to feel all of her carefully constructed plans slowly tunnel around the desperate desire to have a normal relationship with her mother.

She was supposed to be the one taking charge of this conversation, but she had backed out early and now Shelby had all but overrun it.

Rachel realizes that she was stupid for even thinking that today would have gone any differently.

"Listen Rachel, I know that you're excited about your senior year and your NYADA applications… I remember feeling the same way at your age. High school didn't matter to me anymore. I was going to New York. I was going to be on Broadway. That's all I cared about... But you still have to get through your senior year. I wish I could have told my eighteen-year-old self that."

Rachel's frown deepens. Shelby thinks she knows exactly what is distracting her. She thinks that she knows Rachel at all. But she doesn't.

"Do you really think that's why you never made it on Broadway?" Rachel asks her mother. She doesn't mean for it to sound as rude as it does. "Because you skipped one biology class?"

"Of course not," Shelby laughs lets out a little laugh. "But it started somewhere. I thought I was better than everybody else. William McKinley was the same back then as it is now. They didn't care about the arts or catering to their student's needs. They just cared about churning out a new class. I wanted to prove them wrong."

"You went to William McKinley?" Rachel looks up at her mother, her interest sparking. She hadn't known this about Shelby.

"Yup," Shelby nods.

"And it really hasn't changed?"

"People don't leave Lima, Rachel," Shelby reminds her with a sad smile like she is still thinking about everything that could have been for her. Everything that almost was. "Which is why I plan on working you to the bone in these rehearsals. You need to be the one to break the cycle. Are you ready to keep going?"

With her lips sealed tight, Rachel manages a nod.

"Okay," Shelby nods at her firmly. "Then let's keep moving."

* * *

Rachel is so tired after rehearsal that she almost forgoes exploring the lead Shelby had inadvertently given her about attending William McKinley for a shower and her bed.

But in the end, it is too good to let up on and she forces herself to the library anyway.

At this time of night, the school is almost completely empty. Rachel considers this lucky because she is going to need all the privacy she can get.

She slips past the small handful of students still lingering in the library for late tutoring sessions or to finish up the last of their homework before going home for the day. In the back of the room is a row of shelves that houses a collection of every yearbook produced since William McKinley High School opened in the 1950s.

She scans the yearbooks lining the shelves, year after year and finds it fascinating how many of them there are. They are a mark of time, a mark that life goes on, even in moments where it feels like it is standing still.

Of course, Rachel knows that there is no universal law granting immunity to the turning clock just because your own life is falling apart. The hours still turn into days. The late bells still ring over her head and teachers still expect perfect attendance and completed assignments. Colleges admissions offices still accept and reject applications even if hers sits, incomplete and collecting dust on top of her desk…

Rachel has no idea how old Shelby is. She doesn't know what years she would have attended this school and curses herself for not thinking to ask what year she'd graduated when she had the opportunity.

It is a roadblock that she hadn't considered as she scans over the years and years of this high school's sordid past, frowning deeply at the thought that this search might take much longer than she either expected or wanted.

Rachel takes her best guess and pulls out the yearbook from the 1982-1983 school year. She flips through each grade, scanning through the _C's_ for the name _Corcoran_ , but finds nothing.

Year after year, Rachel follows the same procedure only to be disappointed. She is just starting to worry that Shelby Corcoran isn't even her mother's real name and that she would now have to look through each, individual photo in search of the familiar face when she spots it: Shelby's freshman photo in the 1989-1990 yearbook.

Rachel's brows knit together as she studies the photo. If Shelby had been a freshman in 1990, that meant that she would have graduated in 1994. Rachel had been born in 1994, only a few months after Shelby's would-be graduation date…

Rachel's heart starts to speed up. If her mother had gotten pregnant in high school, that meant that there was a good chance that any boyfriend she'd had at the time - likely to be Rachel's biological father - attended William McKinley High School as well.

Rachel finds the yearbook from Shelby's senior year and pulls it down from the shelf. She has to blow off a thick layer of dust from the front cover. The book that had meant so much to the students inside of its pages at one time looks like it hasn't been touched in years. Rachel has to stop herself from considering that there will be a time when what is now the center of her universe will be relegated to a back shelf in the library, never to be touched again.

The cover is plain grey and unrevealing, but the book feels heavy like any burden. Despite everything, it has become a part of who she is. In a way, Rachel realizes that it always has been.

She opens the book where her family thought they could permanently bury there lies and immediately works to dig them back up.

Rachel thinks about bypassing all the class photos and senior portraits but in the end, her curiosity gets the better of her and she turns immediately to the senior class, searching for her mother.

When she does find the picture, easily right at the beginning of the alphabet, Rachel feels like she is looking at a picture of herself. When Shelby was her age, the two of them were even more identical than they are now. The subtle differences were less apparent in the absence of an age difference and the burden of life's hardships that outline Shelby's face today.

Rachel stares at the picture for a long time, longer than she'd intended on.

The girl staring back at her looks so hopeful for the future. Rachel is certain that her senior photo will look the same. She had taken it a week before school started, a week before her entire life fell apart.

She wonders what that picture would have looked like if she had taken it today.

Rachel feels a choking sob bubble towards the surface of her throat and flips away from Shelby's class picture before it can escape. She is still not ready to feel any of these emotions, especially not here, in her high school library.

She finds a segment of the yearbook that is filled with group pictures from clubs and sports.

Shelby had been her class treasurer all four years she attended William McKinley. She was – unsurprisingly – a member of the theater club as well as the select choir. She even ran the 5k for the school's cross-country team.

Still, none of this information holds any significant meaning for what Rachel is really looking for.

The last several pages of the yearbook contains collages of candid photographs taken throughout the school year.

Shelby had been so involved in school activities that there is a picture of her on practically every page. Rachel's heart speeds up when she recognizes that in almost every single picture, her mother is pressed tight into the same boy, caught in time staring up adoringly at him.

It is hard to distinguish his features in the aged, black and white photos, but Rachel can tell that he has Rachel's dark skin and big, round eyes.

There is a caption under one of their pictures in the superlative section: _Most Successful Couple: Shelby Corcoran and Peter Gabbanelli._

The picture above the caption shows the couple at some sort of a school dance in the school gymnasium, which looked exactly the same then as it does now.

This picture is in color, and Rachel gets a much better look at this boy, this Peter Gabbanelli.

He is wearing a frumpy, dark blue tuxedo which clashes horribly with Shelby's emerald green dress. His arms are around her waist even though he is shorter than Shelby by a couple of inches.

His hair is dark and gelled tight to his head. Him and Shelby are looking at the camera, beaming brightly. Rachel realizes that his eyes aren't only the exact same shape as Rachel's, but they are the exact same color as well.

This is her father. Rachel just knows it.

She wonders if Shelby was already pregnant with her when this picture was taken. It didn't seem likely. Shelby still looks like she has her entire life ahead of her in this photo. She looks like she would never guess that, in just over seventeen years' time, her own daughter would be staring at this picture, realizing that there is no reason to try to hide the truth because it seems to have a way of memorializing itself, exposing its secrets in time forever.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi again! Sorry again for the delay. I know you are probably used to me saying this by now but I do make goals for a chapter a week or so and that never seems to be the case.**

 **Anyway, as always, I was overwhelmed and humbled by all of your responses to this story. I just wanted to reply to a couple of the questions/comments people left behind.**

 **First and foremost, I know a lot of people are looking for a lot more Shelby/Rachel stuff. They are my favorite two to write together so I promise there will be more but be ready for things to get worse before they get better because I am a sucker for an angsty buildup.**

 **Speaking of angsty buildups, this story will eventually be a romance between Quinn and Rachel but I am notorious for that slow burn that drives everybody crazy so please be patient with me. Like a lot of people who have mentioned a love for a tortured-soul Quinn, I love the depth of Quinn too and sometimes play with that to a fault so please be patient with me. You will soon find out who the first of them to crack will be ;)**

 **Also, side note, I do not have a particular person in mind in terms of resembling Rachel's biological father (yet). I am a Jersey Girl so I think the Italian persona is my natural go-to and it just so happened to fit in this particular instance so that is one reason for that, there will be another. And, for those asking, there is nothing seriously medically wrong with Rachel aside from the fact that she is responding to the stress of the first major realization that life is not as pretty as she once thought in a fairly negative way. We will see more of that as well.**

 **I will shut up now. Thank you everybody for everything again. Permanent relationships will start to form very soon. These girls are really going to start figuring out who they really are soon. I hope you continue to enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter 6** :

Despite getting more than she'd anticipated out of her mother on the evening of their first rehearsal together, by the end of the week, Rachel has no new information to match the name and the face of who can she only suspect is her biological father.

She has no means to confirm her suspicions aside from a couple of yearbook photos and a senior superlative. It is hardly a DNA test, Rachel knows, but she has a feeling in her gut.

It is him. Rachel is certain of it.

Rachel finds herself obsessing over finding any additional information she can about this man, this Peter Gabbanelli. She scours the archives of William McKinley for any signs of his name, but does not find much.

He is only in two yearbooks; one from his and Shelby's junior year, and the one from their senior year together. That means he probably moved to Lima later in life, making things that much more difficult for Rachel.

He played no sports, as was confirmed by Rachel reading every roster from every sport in the school for the years that the man would have attended. He was in no clubs, no student government, no anything. It is a stark contrast against Shelby's involvement in the school, and Rachel finds herself wondering how the two of them had even gotten together in the first place.

By mid-week, Rachel is feeling desperate. She had even gone so far as to try and bribe Jacob Ben-Israel to swipe Peter's school records while the AV club was changing the wiring on the PA system in the main office, but the price that Jacob was asking was too steep, even for somebody as determined as Rachel.

The girl was not about to forfeit another pair of panties to that creep.

Rachel realizes that she needs to start expanding her search. It will take far more than what sports Peter Gabbanelli did or did not play in high school, or how good or bad his grades were for Rachel to find what she is really looking for.

But the young brunette feels utterly and completely lost, and for the first time in her entire life, she has no idea how to make it all better.

To add insult to injury, she officially breaks up with Finn on Thursday morning. Although she knows the boy should have sensed this coming, he had ran down the hallway with tears in his eyes, which has now lead to him getting some serious flack from the football team.

Rachel had been going back and forth questioning whether letting go of Finn was right or fair since hearing that, but she had walked away from her relationship without once feeling an ounce of regret or remorse. That's how she knew that leaving him was both right _and_ fair.

By Friday, she is utterly exhausted.

Beyond the mental toll this week has taken on her, Shelby has been working her like a dog in rehearsals. She hadn't been kidding when she told Rachel that she was not planning on taking it easy on her just because of who she was.

"Hey."

Quinn rushes up behind Rachel before she can even make it inside of the school; a new record.

Rachel turns to the blonde, relieved to see her. These days, Quinn is the only person in the world who she wants to see, who she can talk to. Everybody else just irritates her.

"Hey," Rachel says. She tries to sound enthusiastic, but she is too exhausted.

"Did you find anything yet?" Quinn asks. She has been asking Rachel this every day since she had told the blonde about her lead regarding a man named Peter Gabbanelli being her potential biological father.

"Nothing," Rachel shakes her head, the disappointment carved inside of her face.

"So, what's next?" Quinn presses.

Rachel turns to Quinn with a sad look and an even sadder shrug of her shoulders. Quinn frowns at her, because it is unsettling to see somebody like Rachel Berry run out of ideas. Rachel _never_ runs out of ideas. Their glee club holds a couple Guinness World Records for _World's Longest High School Glee Rehearsal_ as proof of that statement.

"I'm wonder if it might be time to start pressing Shelby," Rachel brainstorms out loud. She isn't sure that that is the best idea, but at this point, it is starting to look like that is her _only_ idea. She needs something new. These half-truths that she has gathered are starting to press down against her chest to the point where she can't breathe. If she doesn't get oxygen soon, certainly she will die.

Quinn frowns at the brunette's plan. She would rather not get Shelby involved so early. She hasn't even had the opportunity to work out how she is going to use any of this information to try and get Beth back yet.

On top of that, Rachel is starting to get desperate, and Quinn knows better than anybody that desperation can only lead to mistakes.

"I might have an idea before you go running to Shelby," Quinn tells Rachel, trying to work out a plan even as she speaks.

Rachel raises an inquisitive eyebrow up at the blonde. "What is it?"

"I can't tell you yet," Quinn informs Rachel, causing her eyes to dip even more curiously. "I have to make sure I can do it first."

"What do you mean you have to make sure that you can do it?" Rachel presses. She sounds nervous, like she is trying to gauge just how far she believes Quinn will push the envelope. She knows the blonde well enough at this point to know that the answer is _far._

"Just trust me, okay?" Quinn asks. For some reason, it makes that little twinge of guilt bubble inside of her gut again.

"Okay," Rachel forces, leaning into this pit of trust she continues to develop for the blonde even as she pushes everybody else further and further away.

* * *

While everybody else drifts into their homeroom, Quinn slips upstairs to the rarely used third-floor bathroom.

She has first period free this morning, which is lucky because it stops her from having to skip. Not that she would usually care one way or the other, but the school had sent her mother a strongly worded letter in the mail the other day detailing Quinn's recent habit of not showing up to class.

Judy Fabray hadn't had much to say about that aside from a few half-assed gestures of disappointment, but Quinn knew that she was on track not to graduate if she continued collecting absences, and the state would never put her daughter back in her custody if she couldn't even graduate high school…

She would have to start being smarter from now on.

Quinn pushes into the quiet bathroom in search of The Skanks. Well, one Skank in particular.

Genesis Santiago is one of the less talkative girls in the group, who keeps a low profile despite her affiliation. She had moved to Ohio from California last summer to live with her aunt after her mother got busted for selling and manufacturing just about every drug known to man. She would be locked away for the better part of the next century.

Despite her tough upbringing Genesis is kind enough. But she is also hardened and street-smart and considered to be damaged goods to the self-righteous people of Lima. Their inability to accept her as anything other than the child of a thug off the streets of south-central LA is what had attracted her to The Skanks in the first place. Much like Quinn, she had just been looking for somewhere to go in a world that seemed to always leave her behind.

The thing that attracted The Skanks to Genesis the most - and the thing that made Quinn interested now - is that she is also a computer whiz; what some might refer to as _genius._

Quinn finds Genesis smoking cigarettes on the windowsill ledge of the otherwise empty bathroom, just as the blonde had expected.

When she sees Quinn approaching, Genesis offers her a cigarette from her pack, but Quinn denies the offer, claiming that she is trying to cut back.

Where the majority of The Skanks would have given her hell for her sudden attempts at a healthier existence, Genesis only shrugs and jumps down from the windowsill.

"You should be careful about being seen up here," Genesis warns Quinn, stamping out the burned-out cigarette on the filthy floor before immediately lighting up another one. "You and that weird friend of yours are on the Skanks' radar now, and not in a good way. You've been avoiding them, and they've noticed. Plus, that Rachel girl really pissed them off after what happened on Monday."

"So, are you planning on jumping me or something?" Quinn asks, tensing. Had she just walked herself straight into a trap?

The Skanks use the third-floor bathroom because the floor is designated only for storage. Nobody comes up here. It would be easy for Genesis to lock the door, call the rest of the crew inside, and beat the living hell out of Quinn without anybody even noticing.

"Nah," Genesis shakes her head, blowing a stream of smoke into the vent. "That's not really my thing. I just wanted to give you a heads up because The Skanks are assholes."

"You hang out with them all the time," Quinn points out. Then again, she hangs out with The Skanks all the time too, and she doesn't have a much better opinion of them than Genesis does…

"I don't have anybody else," Genesis shrugs simply. She stamps out the second cigarette, even though it is only halfway smoked. This time, she doesn't light another one. "You do."

The girl picks up the two cigarette butts and tosses them out the cracked window. Quinn tries to pretend like she doesn't know that Genesis is referring to Rachel, but she isn't sure she quite perfects the look of confusion on her face.

"Listen, Genesis," Quinn cuts through the awkwardness, forcing herself to get to the point. "The reason that I came looking for you is because I hear you're really good with computers. Like, hacking and stuff."

"Yeah?" the girl nods, pressing Quinn for some elaboration.

"I was wondering if you can help my friend find her missing father."

Quinn doesn't mention Rachel's name on purpose. Aside from the snide comment that Genesis has already made about the brunette, Quinn knows that Rachel isn't exactly ready for her family issues to be public knowledge, _especially_ amongst The Skanks.

But Rachel needs answers and Genesis is their best source for those answers without having to go to Shelby. Besides, Genesis might be a Skank, but she isn't like the rest of them. She can be trusted.

"Who is it?" Genesis asks. Quinn frowns.

"I don't think that I can tell you that," she answers softly.

"I can't find somebody if I don't know who I'm looking for, Blondie."

Genesis' voice is all-business. Her tone tells Quinn that she is not trying to gain this information to torture its owner, she is trying to gain it because while she might be good at what she does, she isn't good enough to find a ghost; which is basically what Rachel is looking for right now.

"Fine," Quinn breathes. "But you can't tell anybody, Genesis. I'm serious. You especially can't tell the rest of The Skanks."

"I'm not an idiot," Genesis rolls her eyes. "I'm also not a snitch."

"It's Rachel Berry," Quinn finally admits, satisfied that Genesis is telling the truth.

"Woah, seriously?" Genesis asks, almost in disbelief. She sounds almost impressed that Rachel could be embroiled in such scandal. "Is that why you've been spending so much time with her lately?"

"Kind of," Quinn shrugs. She doesn't have the energy or the time to explain the rest of her story.

"Doesn't she have like two dads or something?" Genesis asks, confused. "How'd she lose them?"

"She didn't, that's the thing," Quinn informs her. "She just recently found out that neither one of them is her actual dad."

"Well I could have told you that," Genesis laughs. "You should know this stuff, Quinn, you're the smart one in the group. Aren't you supposed to be in AP Biology?"

"It's not like that," Quinn shakes her head. "Her fathers had a surrogate. They always told Rachel that they used one of their sperm samples, but Rachel recently found out that wasn't true. Her biological father is out there somewhere. We just need to find him. That's where you come in. So, will you do it?"

Quinn watches Genesis's face curl, intrigued by the complexity of the story as well as the challenge.

"Easy," she shrugs after a moment. "It will cost you though."

"How much?" Quinn swallows. She had been expecting Genesis to charge her. The girl is a professional. She doesn't work for free.

"I usually charge $500, but I'll help you out for two because you and Berry make The Skanks squirm and they deserve it."

"Deal," Quinn does not hesitate. Reaching out, she shakes Genesis' hand, sealing the deal.

Genesis nods her head, dropping Quinn's hand before turning towards the exit.

"Text me later with the time and place. I'll bring my stuff over." With that, Genesis swings the bathroom door open, straddling the space between the bathroom and the hallway. "Half the money before I do it, the other half after. I'll see you later, Quinn."

"See you later," Quinn nods, watching the girl disappear through the door and out of site.

It is only after Genesis is long gone that Quinn realizes that this is the first time that she has ever heard any of The Skanks call her by her first name.

* * *

The Skanks surround her at lunchtime.

Despite the fact that Rachel still isn't sure what she did to piss them off so much in the first place, aside from spending a little extra time with Quinn, she is walking down the hallway towards her locker, minding her own business when a solid hip check sends her flying into the wall with a grunt.

A searing pain erupts through her right side. She feels her right arm go temporarily numb as all of her books fall out from under it and crash towards the ground.

But that is nothing compared to the anger that flashes through her. It is a force so powerful that it almost scares her.

She is sick of being jumped, ganged up on, bullied. The emotions that come roaring to the surface are those by which she has never felt before. It is an animal instinct – Rachel realizes – that comes when you have been held hostage by your past for weeks with no means to release the pressure.

Some of her fellow classmates giggle at her humiliation, but most take no notice of it like they are used to it by now.

The ones who do stare wait for a reaction. They want to see Rachel blush and pick up her books before walking away, too weak or too scared to stand up for herself. For all they know, Rachel Berry is still that same quiet girl who spends her days silently accepting having Slushees thrown in her face day after day.

But Rachel is not that girl anymore, and she is about to let everybody know that.

She spots the offending Skanks strutting down the hallway away from her like they own this school, like they own _her_ and something inside of Rachel snaps.

The tiny brunette charges forward, using her shoulders to push through the crowd of students.

Her textbooks are still littered across the floor behind her. Rachel doesn't care. She doesn't even think about them. Let them get ruined. It is her dads who will have to pay for them at the end of the school year. It is the least they can do after everything they've done to her.

Without thinking, Rachel reaches up and grabs for the first Skank that she can get her hands on.

The girl is probably twice Rachel's size, but she manages to utilize her rage to make up for that fact. She spins the Skank around, and before this girl even knows what is happening, shoves her hard into the lockers.

Her body makes a metallic sort of banging noise that snaps Rachel back into reality.

She had really just done that. She has never been in a physical fight in her life. Now, she had just decided to start one with five members of the most notorious gang of girls in Lima, Ohio.

Slowly, one-by-one, each Skank turns on Rachel.

The small brunette's chest is heaving. Anger blazes like fire in her eyes, even as the girls descend upon her, enclosing her like an antelope about to be devoured by a pride of lions.

Rachel stands her ground. She may be outnumbered, but it is an instinct, wanting to hurt somebody as badly as they have hurt her, and even as the five Skanks charge forward towards Rachel, all at the same time, Rachel knows that she has plenty of hurt to go around for all five of them.

* * *

Quinn is still searching for Rachel to tell her about the earlier deal she had struck with Genesis when she hears a commotion coming from the senior hallway and allows her curiosity to get the better of her.

The crowd that has gathered is massive, but Quinn shoulders her way through the bodies to the front.

Even before she can see anything, Quinn can tell that there is a fight. The sounds of it are brutal and primitive and the crowd cheers and cringes appropriately with every thud of a fist or crash of a body against the floor.

The last person she is expecting to see in the center of the brawl is Rachel, but when Quinn finally gets a glimpse at the offenders, there the brunette is, clinging to the back of one of her Skank friends, trying to bring the much larger girl to the ground.

Quinn's eyes widen as she takes in the scene in front of her. There are five Skanks and only one Rachel but impressively, the brunette seems to be holding her own.

That is not to say that Rachel doesn't have her fair share of battle wounds.

The brunette's lip is split down the middle. There is a shiner already forming underneath her right eye, and although one of The Skanks is sporting a bloody nose and another has a matching black eye to Rachel's, Quinn knows that it is only a matter of time until the group overpowers Rachel.

And this time, they might actually hurt her.

Quinn throws her belongings to the ground and rushes forward to help. It seems that she has gotten to Rachel just in the nick of time.

Jasmine physically rips the small brunette off the back of the Skank that she had been trying to subdue and throws her to the ground hard on her back. The blow clearly stuns Rachel, who doesn't have time to react before Jasmine connects a boot to her ribs in a way that makes her curl into a ball on instinct.

Jasmine's back is to Quinn. Quinn interprets this as a blessing and capitalizes on the element of surprise that she so rarely has against the leader of The Skanks.

Jasmine is just about to deliver yet another kick into Rachel's ribcage when Quinn cocks her fist back and boxes Jasmine square in the ear as hard as she can.

The crowd gasps in unison and then silences collectively.

The leader of The Skanks doubles forward from the force of Quinn's punch, but she is an experienced fighter. Quinn is not surprised when she works her jaw back and forth a couple of times and recovers quickly, turning over her shoulder to see who had just hit her.

When she sees the familiar blonde staring at her, something inside of Jasmine's eyes changes.

Quinn tries to stand her ground, but she can't help but to swallow as Jasmine's lips tip upwards into a sadistic sort of smile.

"You're dead, Fabray," Jasmine warns the blonde. There is a little bit of blood glistening against her temple where Quinn's punch had broken through the skin.

"Okay, break it up!"

Before Jasmine can retaliate against Quinn's punch, an authoritative tone emerges from the other end of the hallway, dismantling the fight before it can escalate any further.

Through the tightly packed crowd of students, Rachel and Quinn watch as Shelby elbows her way to the front.

The group of girls involved in the fight retract their claws in preparation to point fingers.

Shelby scans the pathetic crowd. Her eyes settle hard on Rachel. She had come out of this fight worse off than anybody.

Her lip is bleeding heavily, her right cheek swollen all the way up to her eye. She is panting heavily from the exertion of the fight, but that might also have something to do with the way that she is holding onto her side like she is trying to keep everything in there together.

Rachel watches Shelby's eyes narrow in on her in a perfect combination of concern and confusion towards how the hell Rachel of all people had gotten herself into this situation.

It makes Rachel's anger flare again. She hates that people think her so incapable.

Clenching her fists, her fingernails dig deep into her palms as she fights the urge to punch Shelby or punch The Skanks or punch the wall.

"You five. Main office. Right now." Shelby forces her eyes away from Rachel and points out every single Skank individually. She is already assigning blame, and while she isn't exactly wrong to assume that they had been the ones to start the fight, Rachel knows that she isn't so innocent in this equation, either.

Just like Shelby isn't so innocent in their equation.

"She started it, teach," Jasmine nods towards Rachel, wiping the blood from the side of her head with the collar of her shirt.

"I don't care who started it!" Shelby snaps at the girl. "Go to Principal Figgins' office right now and wait for him there. You two!" The woman turns over her shoulder, eyes narrowing in on Quinn and Rachel. "Come with me."

Shelby grabs both Rachel and Quinn by the upper arms, attempting to steer them away from the crowd. But this is enough for Rachel. Already heated from her interaction with The Skanks, the brunette rips herself out of Shelby's grasp and takes a step away from her.

"I don't need your help!" the girl snaps. The few students who are still hanging around, waiting to see the aftermath of the fight perk again, hopeful for round two. Even Quinn feels herself tense. Shelby may be on Rachel's shit list right now, but within these walls, she is not Rachel's mother, but a teacher. And Rachel has never acted like this around any sort of authority figure before.

Maybe she really is losing it.

Shelby turns slowly to look at her daughter. For a moment, she glances at Rachel like she has never seen her before, but then, her brows slant in a tone of warning.

Rachel holds her gaze, matching it.

She hates that Shelby had just stopped her from getting the living shit kicked out of her when maybe, that's what she wanted right now. She hates that the woman holds every answer to every question that is making her this way but can still act apathetically about it like her daughter's entire existence is nothing more than a stain that she can wash out when she does the laundry.

Rachel has given Shelby a million opportunities to be honest with her, and yet, the woman hasn't taken a single one.

"I'm sending you to the nurse," Shelby announces loudly, trying to ward off the stragglers in the audience. Her voice is taut. She knows that Rachel has just challenged her. She also knows that she can't do anything about it here. "She'll help you get cleaned up. I'll let Principal Figgins know that he can be expecting you afterwards. He can call your parents to pick you up. You two are done for the day."

"My parents…" Rachel sneers. The quip is quiet, but it is loud enough for Shelby – and only Shelby – to hear it. "Right."

Shelby doesn't try to stop Rachel when she turns around and walks away from her, even though she is moving in the opposite direction as the nurse's office.

Quinn makes a move to follow the young brunette, but while Shelby had struggled to uphold her authority in front of Rachel, she has absolutely no qualms about stopping Quinn.

The blonde has to swallow a groan of disappointment when she feels the woman reach out and grab her by the wrist, steering her back in.

"I thought that you were cleaning up your act, Quinn," Shelby accuses because she needs somebody to blame.

Quinn feels herself flush. She wonders if Shelby is being particularly hard on her because she hadn't been able to bring herself to be hard on her own daughter.

"Shelby…" Quinn struggles to find her voice. She wants to be angry with Shelby for assuming that it had been her to start the fight when really, the only thing she had done was finish it, but the truth is that she is too worried about Rachel to feel anything else at all.

"Ms. Corcoran," Shelby reminds her harshly. Quinn swallows.

"Ms. Corcoran…" Quinn corrects herself. "Give Rachel some slack. The Skanks have been after her lately. The fight had already started by the time I got there. It was five of them against one of her. They must have ganged up on her. I was just trying to stop her from getting seriously hurt."

Shelby sighs, closing her eyes. She releases her grip on Quinn's upper arm to pinch the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

"What is going on with her, Quinn?" Shelby finally asks the blonde with sad, desperate eyes.

Quinn can tell that Shelby is worried. Really worried. She would never tell Rachel, but she'd always known that Shelby cares about Rachel. Rachel wouldn't understand. She has no idea what it feels like to give up your child and watch them grow up with another family. She has no idea how much it hurts being so close, but so far away at the same time. She only knows what it is like to be on the other side of that equation.

"I don't know," Quinn lies. "You've been spending more time with her these days than I have, with your rehearsals and all."

"It's a school arrangement," Shelby reminds Quinn. She sounds like she is trying to convince Quinn of this just as much as she is trying to convince herself. "Her fathers signed a permission slip. We don't talk about personal things. It would be… inappropriate."

"Maybe that's the problem," Quinn shrugs. Shelby frowns at the blonde like she hadn't considered this.

"She doesn't want to talk to me, Quinn," Shelby finally shakes her head.

"Then make her," Quinn insists, her voice sharp. She takes a deep breath, feeling suddenly bad for snapping even if it is Shelby they are talking about here.

"Listen, I can talk to her if you want," Quinn offers after a moment. "I'll run after her. You just have to stall with Principal Figgins for me."

She watches Shelby consider her offer. The older woman isn't sure how ethical it is to send one complicit party of a fistfight to the principal while turning the other cheek to the other party strictly for personal gain. Ultimately, she decides that she doesn't care.

"Go," Shelby finally nods Quinn away. "I'll stall with Principal Figgins."

"Thanks Ms. Corcoran," Quinn nods, but she doesn't hesitate before going after Rachel. The brunette has already gotten enough of a head start.

* * *

"Rachel, wait!"

The blonde catches Rachel at the end of the hallway just before she can push out the side door leading into the senior parking lot.

Quinn can tell that Rachel has heard her, but the brunette doesn't stop or even slow down. She literally punches the door open and steps into the sunlight. Quinn picks up her pace, following behind Rachel like a puppy.

As soon as they are safely outside, alone amidst the senior's empty, parked cars, Rachel lets out a loud scream of frustration.

"I hate The Skanks!" she yells at everybody and nobody in particular. Quinn shoves her exposed hands – biting against the cold – deep into her pockets, trying to keep them warm as she shrugs as casually as she can manage.

"Don't mind them much," she tells Rachel softly, trying to force the brunette to match her calm tones. "They just swapped their morality for whatever medication they could find in their foster family's medicine cabinets."

"Yeah?" Rachel snorts. She sounds unconvinced. "Then what's Shelby's deal?"

"She's worried about you, Rachel," Quinn insists. "And if it makes a difference, she just stopped the both of us from getting our asses kicked by The Skanks."

Rachel just rolls her eyes. "Yeah, because she cares so much all of a sudden."

Quinn takes a deep breath, feeling herself harden as she steps within arm's distance of Rachel and stares at the brunette hard.

"Okay, I get that you're pissed off about everything that's going on right now, but you need to chill out," Quinn warns. She has never seen Rachel so angry before. The younger girl's face is beet red. She is breathing so heavily that her shoulders rise and fall with the force of an anvil. Quinn is afraid that she is going to stroke out right in front of her. "This isn't worth losing your shit over, Rachel. It's not worth losing everything for!"

"That's none of your business, Quinn!" Rachel shoots back, glaring at Quinn.

The blonde retracts as she gets a good look at Rachel's face for the first time since the fight.

In the natural sunlight, Rachel's injuries look much worse than they had in the dark hallway. Her swollen cheek is red and bruised around a small cut that has opened up just underneath her right eye. For the first time, Quinn notices that it is not just Rachel's lip that is bleeding, but her entire mouth. With Rachel baring her teeth at Quinn, the blonde notices that that is because one of them has been jarred loose.

"Like hell it's none of my business!" Quinn finds her nerve. Something about Rachel's abysmal appearance helps her dig deep for it.

Rachel isn't just being desperate anymore she is being reckless. She is throwing not only her personal safety into the wind, but Quinn's as well.

"I get that you're angry, Rachel, but you're the one who came to me for help so suck it up and spill. What the hell is going on with you?"

"What's going on with me is that everybody here thinks you hanging out with The Skanks is some big joke, but they're dangerous, Quinn! And I'm the one paying for your stupid mistakes!"

"You're the one who just starting a fight with them!" Quinn shouts back, feeling her own anger rise alongside Rachel's accusations.

"Says the girl who just punched Jasmine in the face," Rachel rolls her eyes.

"Only because she was about to kick your ass!" Quinn counters. Rachel only huffs and crosses her arms over her chest.

"I was fine."

"You were on the floor," Quinn reminds Rachel. "She nearly broke your freaking ribs."

"You need to get rid of them, Quinn," Rachel tells the blonde seriously. She is not yelling anymore, but her tone has become icy and Quinn knows that she is being more serious than she ever has been with Quinn before.

"It's not that easy," Quinn deflates.

"It never is," Rachel shrugs. She is not accepting this as a valid excuse.

Quinn stares at Rachel for a moment, her eyes bearing into her as she attempts to evaluate the girl and see what is inside her head. Rachel wants Quinn to get rid of The Skanks, but Quinn needs Rachel to understand that – for the time being - The Skanks might be their only key to finding out every answer that they have been looking for.

"Listen, I need to keep The Skanks around for a little while longer," Quinn argues. "One of them is a girl who is good with computers. _Very_ good with computers."

"She's still a Skank," Rachel folds her arms across her chest. She clearly does not understand the point that Quinn is trying to make.

"She isn't like the rest of them, Rachel!" Quinn insists. "She wasn't even there for the fight. She was just in some foster home with Jasmine for a bit while she was waiting for her aunt to be given custody. She isn't into all of the bullshit, she just needed somebody. It's not her fault that Jasmine got to her before anybody else could."

Rachel glares at Quinn for a moment. She is not entirely sure how much she should be trusting a Skank, even if it is a Skank Quinn is vouching for. But she trusts Quinn - these days more than she even trusts herself – and decides that she will give the blonde the opportunity to plead her case.

"What do you mean she's good with computers?" Rachel asks.

"She can hack into any computer, any database," Quinn elaborates. "Police, governmental, you name it. If you're looking for somebody, Genesis can find them. I already asked her. She said she'll do it."

Rachel feels her face blanch.

"Wait, you already told her about me?" she accuses, feeling her trust in the blonde shatter.

Quinn's face falls, recognizing her mistake. She watches the betrayal spread across Rachel's face and suddenly wishes she had kept her big mouth shut.

"We can trust her, Rachel," Quinn promises, trying to reel Rachel back in.

"I can't believe you would do that!" Rachel roars, the anger reappearing in half the time it had taken Quinn to quell it. "I trusted you, Quinn! I poured my heart and soul out to you and you told one of The Skanks about me without even asking me first?"

"She's one of the good guys, Rachel!" Quinn insists.

"And what about you?" Rachel shoots back immediately, her voice stabbing daggers into Quinn. "Are you one of the good guys."

Quinn swallows. The moment she hesitates, she realizes that the pause had given Rachel the answer she needs.

It makes Quinn question even herself. _Is_ she one of the good guys?

She wants to help Rachel find herself again, really she does, but had she already lost too much of herself to her own, selfish desires?

She knows that it is wrong, but the voice continues to whisper in the back of her head, reminding her that Rachel's downfall can be her gain. She can get Beth back.

It is the first time Quinn realizes that it is certainly dark inside of her own head.

"No," Quinn answers, her voice soft. "I'm not."

Rachel doesn't say anything to her. She just nods like she has been thinking the same thing. Quinn has to actively pretend like this doesn't hit as hard as it does.

"You know Quinn, I just got my ass kicked by your stupid friends just because I'm associated with you," Rachel reminds Quinn again. "Maybe it's for the best if we keep our distance for a while."

Rachel finishes with a suggestion that surprises Quinn. When the blonde looks up to meet her gaze, she realizes that Rachel's face is a mask. It is pale and gives away nothing.

Quinn is impressed with how good Rachel has gotten at hiding what she is feeling despite her reputation for being the most emotional of them all. These days, Rachel sits through life the way most people sat in the church Quinn's father used to force her and her mother to attend on Sundays. Silent. Straight-backed. Staring straight ahead without offering any details.

This is not the girl that Quinn thought she knew. Rachel is a statue now, and Quinn's deepest fear is that she will end up becoming just like her; a girl who has rearranged the pieces of her life so many times she had worn out the parts.

Quinn has nothing to say and Rachel takes that as her cue to leave.

The brunette shoulders past Quinn hard and storms off into the sea of cars littering the parking lot.

"What should I tell Genesis?" Quinn shouts after the girl.

"You're the one who got yourself into this mess, Quinn!" Rachel calls back to her. She doesn't stop walking. "But if you want my advice, you should focus your efforts on saving somebody else. You might want to start with yourself."

With that, Rachel disappears.

The loss of her overcomes Quinn with a dreaded feeling of hopelessness. For a moment, Quinn feels as angry as Rachel had looked earlier.

The blonde turns around. The first thing she does is throw her cellphone. The screen shatters into a million pieces as it bounces off the brick exterior of her high school.

Still not satisfied, Quinn throws a punch next. She uses the same hand that she had used to hit Jasmine earlier. The knuckles are still bruised and tender. When they hit the brick, she feels one of them give out with a sharp crack.

With a hiss of pain, Quinn pulls her wounded hand tight into her chest. She knows the knuckle in her right hand is broken immediately, but the pain is still not enough to mask the worry she feels towards Rachel.

Quinn thought that she knew all about anger.

She had spent an entire summer seething on a coastal Rhode Island town and still, she realizes that that had been kiddy stuff in comparison to what Rachel was experiencing.

Rachel had told her to back off, but it suddenly makes her more determined to get to the bottom of her problems.

More pronouncedly, Quinn realizes that this is about Rachel and Rachel only.

For the first time, it is not about getting revenge on Shelby. It isn't even about getting Beth Back. Hell, Quinn hasn't even thought about Beth today.

Rachel however, has been on her mind consistently.

Quinn tries to push aside the thought. She doesn't want to think about it. Still, the way that her heart pounds a little bit harder inside of her chest at the thought of Rachel forces her to realize that no matter what is going on inside of her head, her heart is always there to point back to Rachel Berry.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7** :

Quinn avoids telling her mother about her hand for as long as she can.

She is certain that she can get away with it, her mother is hardly observant, but Judy catches a glimpse of the swollen knuckles on Saturday morning while Quinn is struggling to maneuver a spoon long enough to shovel a bowl of cereal into her mouth.

After that, she ends up spending the rest of her Saturday in the Emergency Room.

It takes all day. The public hospital is packed and under-staffed, a perfect recipe for disaster. The wait is hell, but the worst part is the lecture that she gets from her mother about how un-ladylike fistfights are the entire time.

" _This is worse than that awful color you dyed your hair, Quinnie."_

By the time Quinn is discharged, it is already evening. She had wasted an entire Saturday.

She leaves the ER feeling bored and unfulfilled with a black cast wrapped around her right hand – another feature for her mother to voice her disappointment over – cradling the two broken knuckles of her middle and ring fingers.

To make matters worse, she doesn't talk to Rachel all weekend.

Quinn had destroyed her phone after throwing it against the brick exterior of her high school and her mother is refusing to buy her a new one as punishment for her fight.

In her absence, Quinn finds that she actually misses Rachel. The brunette's presence has been the only source of comfort Quinn has had in recent weeks. As a result, without even thinking about it, the first place Quinn goes when she returns to school on Monday morning is Rachel's locker.

Judging by Rachel's appearance, the weekend hadn't treated her any better than it had Quinn.

The brunette's eye is a dark shade of purple and her split lip looks just as swollen and angry as it had on Friday, if not more so. Quinn can't help but to grimace as she approaches.

"Are we still fighting?" she asks tentatively, trying to sound casual as she leans into the locker next to Rachel's.

"I don't know," Rachel responds dryly. She doesn't even look at Quinn. "Are we?"

"I'd prefer it if we weren't," Quinn admits with a shrug.

Rachel's eyes finally flicker up to look at the blonde.

"How's your hand?" she nods down to Quinn's cast. It hardly goes unnoticed that she has completely changed the subject.

"It's fine," Quinn shrugs. "How's your face?"

"It's fine," Rachel mimes.

"Did your dads freak?"

"Yes," Rachel rolls her eyes at the mere memory. "I didn't get in trouble, though. I just blamed it on The Skanks. Of course, they didn't believe that their perfect daughter could be responsible for something so violent. I did have to spend all of Saturday at the dentist, though. Those Barbarians knocked out one of my teeth."

"If it makes you feel better, I spent all of Saturday in the ER," Quinn smirks, waving her casted hand in Rachel's face.

Much to Quinn's surprise and relief, Rachel actually smiles back. The blonde feels something rise inside of her chest, something that makes her feel much more hopeful about the status of her friendship with Rachel than she had felt on Friday afternoon.

"So, are you not pissed at me anymore?" Quinn risks re-visiting the subject. When Rachel only frowns at her, Quinn's face falls, wondering if she should have brought up their argument at all.

"I am grateful that you came to my aide on Friday," Rachel sighs, her eyes falling again. "I realize now that it was rather bull-headed of me to think that I could take on five of The Skanks on my own."

"You think?" Quinn raises her eyebrows, but she lowers them back down when she notices that Rachel does not look amused.

"I'm still upset that you told one of them," she admits.

"Rachel…"

"It's okay, Quinn," Rachel cuts the blonde off. "I know that you were only trying to help. But I don't need The Skanks of all people knowing about me. I can figure this out without them."

Quinn forces herself to nod. She has no choice but to agree with Rachel. This is not her fight. As much as she wants to control the situation, and point Rachel in the right direction, she can't. This is something that Rachel will have to figure out on her own.

"Did you get any leads over the weekend?" she asks Rachel. She already knows the answer, she is just forcing herself to be supportive.

Rachel shakes her head, but the look on her face tells Quinn that she is not out of ideas yet.

"You said that you go to Shelby's apartment with Puck to see Beth sometimes, right?" Rachel asks.

"Right…" Quinn nods slowly. She wasn't expecting Rachel to bring up Beth. It catches her off guard, but she forces herself not to show it.

"I want to go with you next time," Rachel states bluntly. She is wearing that same, determined face that Quinn had seen on her when she had been holding her own against The Skanks on Friday. She knows that Rachel has made up her mind.

Quinn cannot very well tell Rachel why she doesn't agree with this tactic, so all she does is nod.

"Sure…" she tells Rachel. "But Rachel… Are you sure that you want to drag Shelby into this? I mean, your entire relationship with her has been nothing more than disconnections and disappointments. Do you really think that it will be worth it?"

"I'm sure," Rachel nods her head confidently. "Besides, to have a disconnection with Shelby, I would have to have been connected with her at some point, and that certainly isn't the case."

"You _were_ connected to her once, technically," Quinn points out.

Rachel rolls her eyes. "An umbilical cord doesn't count."

"Why not?" Quinn asks. She is thinking about Beth again – how could she not be – and why Rachel refuses to ever give her that inch that she needs to assure herself that her and her daughter could still have a relationship, that they were still destined to be mother and child.

"I heard that The Skanks got suspended for a week," Rachel tells Quinn quickly, blatant in her attempts to change the subject. Again. Like the last time, Quinn is disappointed, but she rolls with it.

"Yup," the blonde confirms. On Friday, every single Skank, with the exception of her and Genesis - who had not been involved in the fight – had been suspended. They weren't allowed on the school grounds for a week. It meant that Quinn and Rachel would be safe as long as they were at school for the next couple of days, but Quinn is not foolish enough not to expect retaliation the moment they are back in school next Monday…

And when that did happen, their little fight on Friday would look like child's play.

"I heard that we didn't get suspended because Shelby vouched to Principal Figgins that our involvement was self-defense," Quinn continues.

Rachel nods, but holds steadfast to her confused, almost anguished expression.

"She could have lost her job, lying like that for us," the brunette clicks her tongue. "I don't get her."

The only thing that Quinn can do is shrug her shoulders at Rachel, forcing out a little smile.

"Well, if you have things your way, you'll get her soon enough."

* * *

Rachel is genuinely surprised when she goes to the auditorium after school and finds Shelby waiting for her at the piano as always.

"I thought you wouldn't come," Rachel admits to the woman, unslinging her bag and placing it down on the floor a couple feet in front of Shelby.

"Why?" Shelby asks her. "Because you got in a fight on Friday?"

"No, because I got in a fight on Friday and I took it out on you and you still defended me," Rachel clarifies.

"We all have our days, Rachel," Shelby assures her with a shrug and a sigh. "How's your face?"

"It's a little sore," Rachel admits. She is dancing around Shelby. While she tries to put on such a hard front whenever she is in the vicinity of Quinn, pretending that she knows how to get Shelby to bow to her will, when she is actually in front of the woman, she feels like she is reduced to Jell-O. "I just came today because I wanted to tell you that my doctor said I can't sing or do anything strenuous while my cheek heals. It's not broken or anything, my dads are just being paranoid."

"Yes, I heard all about that," Shelby nods, standing up from the piano. When the smaller brunette looks up at her curiously, Shelby smiles and explains. "I saw Mr. Schuester earlier. He seemed upset. When I asked him why, he told me it was because his female lead is benched for a week with Sectionals right around the corner."

Rachel feels herself flush. Although there had once been a time where she would have sacrificed life and limb for the opportunity to sing, right now, she is honestly grateful for the break.

Shelby is right; Mr. Schuester _had_ been disappointed when she had told him the bad news this morning. So had the rest of her team. Those involved in the play didn't take it any better, and although they did not outright say so, Rachel knew immediately that her role as the lead is in jeopardy. She has been too flaky lately. Last week, she hadn't had her lines memorized at all and this week, she can't even deliver those lines.

She is sensing everybody getting increasingly frustrated with her.

"I'm sorry," Rachel apologizes. Shelby just shakes her head.

"Don't be sorry," the woman laughs softly. "I'm sure that not being able to sing for a week is a sufficient punishment for people like us."

"People like us?" Rachel asks, looking up at Shelby.

"Ambitious," Shelby nods and Rachel feels herself swallow. She is ambitious, that is for sure; but these days, she is taking her ambition to an entirely different level.

"I feel like I've been doing a lot of apologizing lately," Rachel admits, training her eyes back down to the floor. "Especially to you."

Shelby nods before averting her eyes back down to the piano like she is thinking very hard about what to say next.

"If it makes you feel better, I did a lot of apologizing at your age too."

Rachel frowns. That doesn't make her feel better. Shelby may have done a lot of apologizing, but Rachel knows that Shelby had a lot to apologize for when she was her age. She has a lot to apologize for now. Rachel doesn't want her own life to be punctuated by such a profound series of mistakes.

A silence pulses painfully in between mother and daughter. Somehow, Rachel knows what Shelby is going to say even before the woman says it.

"You need to be careful around those girls, Rachel," Shelby tells her seriously.

"I didn't do anything to them!" Rachel insists, offended that Shelby would even think her capable of starting any of this. "They just decided to start messing with me one day. What was I supposed to do? Let them keep ganging up on me? They'll get bored and move on eventually. It's not a big deal."

Shelby sighs. She is not happy with Rachel's answer, but the girl can at least tell that she believes her. Why wouldn't she? Shelby has no reason to think that Rachel would ever be associated with _those_ girls. Then again, it is likely that Shelby would have once said the same thing about Quinn.

"Is there anything that I can do?" Shelby finally asks.

Rachel stares at her. For a moment, her eyes betray everything that she is thinking -

 _There is so much that you can do._

Rachel manages to erase the look from her face before Shelby can fully process it. There is so much that Shelby can do for her, but when it comes to this, Shelby would only make things worse. Rachel is going to have to get through this one on her own.

"No," Rachel settles, shaking her head.

Shelby stares at Rachel for a moment, gauging her. Rachel holds the gaze determined. She doesn't falter once. In order for this to work, Rachel knows that she needs Shelby to see how much she has changed since they'd last seen each other. She needs Shelby to see the girl who had pulled strength from her experiences, not the girl who used to always use them as an excuse.

"Is Quinn friends with those girls, Rachel?" Shelby asks after a long moment. Her voice is low and serious. Rachel looks up at her timidly, afraid of the conclusion that Shelby is making about the blonde.

"Not anymore," Rachel insists.

Shelby's eyebrows cock, imploring Rachel for the truth. The girl swallows. She knows that she will have to come up with something better. She can't be the one to put Quinn in a position where Shelby no longer trusts her. It would destroy her.

"She's had a tough couple of years," Rachel settles. "She made a mistake getting together with The Skanks, but she learned her lesson. She defended me against them. She's changing, really."

Shelby raises an eyebrow at her daughter's adamant defense of Quinn Fabray. She knows that her daughter's relationship with the blonde could be described as tumultuous at best, but there is something about the two of them together lately that has caught Shelby's attention, and the woman can't help but wonder if Quinn is not the only one who is having a tough couple of years suddenly catch up with her.

"You know, Rachel, I'm starting to think that Quinn might not be the only one around here who is struggling."

"What do you mean?" Rachel asks. She doesn't like the implication inside of Shelby's words.

"I know that it's been a long time since we've last seen each other. Even now, we hardly know each other." Shelby is being cautious, Rachel can tell. This only makes the younger girl more nervous. "You just seem so different."

"People grow up," Rachel shrugs, working very hard to keep her voice straight. "They learn."

"It's usually a few more years before they become this bitter, though."

Rachel points her eyes down to the floor. Is that what this feeling is? Rachel had never considered it before, but now that Shelby has said the word, _bitter_ seems to be the perfect word to describe what she is feeling.

"Listen, I've been thinking," Shelby breaks through the silence. "I guess it makes sense that you and Quinn have been spending so much time with each other lately. I hurt the both of you once before. Maybe we can all try to figure something out together. Noah and Quinn come over sometimes to visit Beth. Why don't you join them next time? We'll all have dinner."

Rachel's eyes shoot up. She had come here today in the hopes of trying to convince Shelby to invite her to her apartment. She had thought she was doing a horrible job so far. She hadn't expected Shelby to offer her the invitation first.

"I know it's a lot to ask," Shelby says quickly, like she is afraid that she had messed up by blindsiding Rachel. "If you're not ready, that's okay too."

"You want me to meet Beth?" Rachel asks.

Shelby looks at her carefully, trying to study her facial expression, but she finds that she reads nothing. "If you'd like to."

"I would," Rachel nods, forcing herself to keep things simple before she can say anything that would only totally screw this up.

"How about we coordinate with Quinn and Noah to set something up?" Shelby suggests.

"How about we do it tonight?" Rachel counters.

"Tonight?" Shelby asks, unable to hide her surprise by Rachel's eagerness.

"Why not?" Rachel forces herself to take a step back while still committing to her suggestion. "I can't sing so we won't be stuck in rehearsal all night. We both have plenty of time to get ready."

Shelby pauses, considering her. She is not so certain about doing this so quickly but knows she cannot risk pushing her daughter any further away than she already has.

"Okay," Shelby finally agrees, and Rachel knows that she has her. "I'll let you off the hook on our rehearsals just this one time. Don't think that just because you're benched for a week I won't come up with anything for you to do."

Shelby smiles at Rachel, who forces one back.

"Here's my address," Shelby tells the girl, jotting her home address down quickly on a piece of scrap paper before handing it over to Rachel, who studies it as though it were made of gold. "Be there at 6:30 sharp."

* * *

Quinn is still a little bit skeptical about what Rachel has up her sleeve, but she is not one to say no to an opportunity to see her daughter.

When Rachel approaches her with the knowledge that she had brokered a deal to have dinner at Shelby's tonight, the blonde has no choice but to agree.

Later that night, at Shelby's, Rachel tries her hardest to look comfortable, but she knows that she is way out of her league.

Quinn watches her carefully as she bounces Beth on her lap. She remembers how uncomfortable she had been the first time she had come to Shelby's apartment. She is _still_ uncomfortable about it. She wishes that she could say something to Rachel, but with Shelby and Puck so close, it wouldn't be safe.

Instead, Rachel is left to fend for herself, sneaking fleeting glances towards Shelby all night.

She is trying her hardest to find the right opportunity to speak to the woman, but it never seems to come. She is too caught up in being inside of Shelby's apartment, in being in such personal proximity with the woman, of meeting Beth…

Despite everything, this is the first time that Rachel has ever actually seen the little girl.

She looks like Quinn. In fact, Rachel doesn't see an ounce of Puck inside of her. Only Quinn.

Rachel notices the way that Quinn notices the resemblance as well. She notices how Quinn's entire persona changes when she is with her daughter and wonders if Shelby ever felt that way about her, or wished she had the same opportunities when Rachel was little as Puck and Quinn do with Beth…

The evening is uneventful, all things considered. Quinn and Puck leave as Beth's bedtime approaches, just as they always do, with Shelby seeing them out as she cradles the heavy-eyed Beth high inside of her arms.

Shelby stands in the doorway while Quinn slowly backs into the hall. She watches as Shelby holds one of Beth's hands, waving it goodbye for her.

Quinn forces a smile, but the truth is that she wants to cry.

This is how she normally feels when it's time to leave Beth, but somehow, this time feels different…

"Are you coming?"

Puck and Quinn make all the way to the parking lot before Puck realizes that Quinn is no longer following him to his car.

He turns over his shoulder, watching Quinn slowly trot towards him.

"I was gonna wait for Rachel," Quinn explains, sitting down on the curb as though to prove her point.

Puck raises his eyebrows. "What is going on with the two of you?"

Puck sounds suspicious. He is looking at Quinn with the same expression he had worn when he accused Quinn of having ill-intentions regarding her visits with Beth.

"She's my friend," Quinn settles on saying. She gives nothing else away, afraid that if she does, she will inadvertently tell Puck everything.

Despite her best intentions, she does that anyway.

This is the first time she has ever publicly admitted to having any sort of relationship with Rachel Berry; friendship or otherwise. Usually, she is trying her hardest to deny this fact. If anything, this makes Puck even less inclined to believe that Quinn's intentions are purely honorable.

"You're not gonna try anything stupid, are you?" Puck pushes.

"Not anymore," the blonde informs Puck with a stiff shake of her head.

"Anymore?" Puck raises an eyebrow.

"I used to think that getting custody of Beth back would be the best thing for her, alright?" Quinn rolls her eyes at herself. Saying this out loud makes her feel incredibly foolish and frankly, it's humiliating.

"You were gonna kidnap our daughter?" Puck asks incredulously.

"Of course not, Puck," Quinn rolls her eyes, although she knows that Puck's question is not as ridiculous as she is trying to make it sound. "I was gonna make Shelby look like a bad mom so that I could file a CPS claim and they would give us custody back."

"That's stupid," Puck criticizes, crossing his thick forearms across his chest.

"Thank you, Puck, I know that now." Quinn's voice is hostile and accusing. She doesn't need Noah Puckerman of all people rubbing her bad decisions in her face.

"So, what's the plan now?" Puck asks. Sarcasm is dripping from his voice. "Hire a hitman? Use Rachel to get Beth back? Is that why you're so obsessed with her all of a sudden?"

Quinn swallows as her heart dips into her stomach. In fact, that _had_ been her plan. She was supposed to use Rachel to blackmail Shelby into giving her Beth back and she wasn't supposed to have any feelings about that one way or another.

But then she _had_ had feelings about it.

She hadn't had feelings about anything before, and isn't entirely sure how she is supposed to interpret them.

What she does know is that everybody that Quinn has ever known has made the exact same mistakes; her father, her mother, her sister, her friends. Her.

Quinn is determined to break that cycle. She has to. Half of her friends were destined to become nothing more than Lima Losers. Her parents are two lonely people who are destined to spend the rest of their lives that way.

Quinn has made her fair share of mistakes, but the difference is that she still has time to correct them, and she has somebody to do it with her.

Somewhere in the course of all this, Quinn had looked straight inside of Rachel Berry and found light on the other side.

"I'm not using Rachel," Quinn whispers quietly. Her voice has lost all its gusto. Inside of her chest, her heart is flurrying a beat in Morse code, begging her to listen, begging her to be honest with herself about why it hurts so badly to consider how horribly she had planned on using Rachel.

"Then what's with the sudden obsession?"

"I like Rachel, okay?" Quinn mutters. She is having a hard time projecting her voice any louder than a whisper. This is the closest she has ever gotten to admitting the truth, even to herself.

She _does_ like Rachel, a lot in fact. The brunette is different; exquisitely unique. Like Rachel, many people come her way. Unlike Rachel, they have all left.

Rachel Berry is the first person in the entire world who has refused to give up on her, and Quinn now realizes that she owes Rachel more than trying to use her tragedy for a personal gain she isn't even sure she deserves anymore.

"You used to torture her," Puck reminds her, and the accusation pulls something primitive out of Quinn that not even she thought was possible.

"I love her!" Quinn bellows through Puck's persistence.

Her voice echoes across the empty parking lot, vibrating through the silence. Quinn has been looking for a way to shut Puck up. This seems to do the trick.

Puck's eyes double in size, but his body shrinks away from its previous defensive stance. Of all the things he had been expecting Quinn to say, that had been just about the last.

"Woah…"

Puck's response is underwhelming, but Quinn's admission has caused tears to leak out from her eyes which she quickly wipes away.

"I thought that obsessing over getting Beth back would make all these stupid feelings go away," Quinn continues despite Puck's lack of articulation. She finds that now that she has started speaking, she is hard-pressed to stop.

"Did they?"

"Of course not," Quinn rolls her eyes, deflating. "I was… I was projecting, I guess. I have a tendency to act like an idiot when I get cornered."

Much to Quinn's surprise, Puck offers her a gentle smile.

"Me too," he says before sitting down on the curb next to Quinn. "So, does this mean I don't have a chance to get with either you or Berry anymore?"

Quinn rolls her eyes at Puck again, but this time it is less out of anger and more out of the understanding that Noah Puckerman is a dork hidden inside the body of a hard ass…

"Rachel is probably still on the table."

"You haven't told Rachel any of this yet, have you?" Puck asks. He sounds surprised, which Quinn finds weird because of course she hasn't told Rachel yet. She doesn't think she can ever tell Rachel.

"I have barely been able to admit it to myself," Quinn admits, her tone slightly hard as though to tell Puck that he better keep his mouth shut; a trait that she knows he is not well-known for. "The last thing I need are those rumors floating around. Besides, Rachel doesn't play for that team; she won't be interested. Just look at all the guys she's been with: Finn, Jesse… _you_."

Quinn nods up at Noah, who shrugs and makes a face like he is recalling the memory of him and Rachel hooking up fondly.

"Well, if I remember correctly, you've been with me and Finn, too," Puck points out. "And I am certainly no chick."

Puck flexes his sizeable biceps towards Quinn as though to prove a point. Quinn just rolls her eyes and leans back against the curb, fishing through her purse.

She hasn't had a cigarette in almost a week, but her sudden craving is almost desperate with Puck in her ear giving her advice on how to embrace her sexuality.

"You really can't tell anybody, Puck," Quinn repeats as she locates the full pack of Marlboros at the bottom of her purse. "Especially not Santana. I know the two of you have been hooking up."

Quinn pulls out the cigarettes, tapping the cardboard box hard against the heel of her left hand. The motion makes the broken knuckles of her right-hand throb, but she ignores it.

"Please, I haven't hooked up with Santana in like three weeks," Noah rolls his eyes. "Seriously though, Quinn, from my experience it's better to just let the girl you're after know what your needs are. Trust me, they say yes _way_ more than they say no."

"Rachel isn't some sex-deprived housewife, Puck," Quinn point out. She flips the cigarette carton open. As always, she had flipped one of the cigarettes upside down for good luck when she had bought the pack although she doesn't know why she even bothers with this superstition anymore. The only thing her lucky habits have given her is bad luck.

She grabs the upside-down cigarette and shoves it between her teeth. She doesn't bother turning a second one around.

"Maybe she's not, but if there is one thing I know about, it's ladies," Puck tells Quinn confidently. "And I don't discriminate between what type."

Quinn has to resist the urge to gag as she ducks her head against the windy night in an effort to spark her lighter.

"Besides," Puck offers just as Quinn manages to light her cigarette. She feels the smoke wrap around her throat like a noose. "You'll never know until you try."

* * *

"Are you alright, Rachel?"

Inside of Shelby's apartment, the older woman walks out of Beth's bedroom after putting the little girl down for the night only to find that while Noah and Quinn are long gone, Rachel has chosen to stick around.

The girl is standing in the living room, her hands deep inside of her pockets. She is leaning over the mantle that frames the fake fireplace, looking closely at all the pictures of Beth that Shelby has lined up there.

When she hears Shelby's voice, she looks away from them quickly, embarrassed at having been caught.

"Sure," Rachel shrugs. "My dads told me once that it's rude to leave your mess behind at a dinner party. Do you need any help cleaning up?"

Rachel isn't lying. Her dads _had_ taught her that it's rude to leave a dinner party without offering to clean up. Of course, her intentions go well beyond the scope of not wanting Shelby to think of her as rude.

"Sure," Shelby smiles softly, gesturing Rachel into the kitchen where the dirty dishes from dinner are still stacked high inside of the sink.

"I wash, you dry?" Shelby asks, offering Rachel a dish towel.

Rachel nods, accepting the towel as Shelby rolls up her sleeves and digs her hands into the full sink.

"So, how did tonight go?" Shelby asks after a moment, her voice slightly muffled by the sound of running water.

"Okay, I think," Rachel shrugs, accepting the dripping wet plate that Shelby hands to her.

"I think so too," Shelby agrees. "To be honest, I'm surprised that you agreed so readily to my invitation to come over."

"Because of Friday?" Rachel asks curiously. Shelby only shrugs.

"That and everything else," the woman nods, and then she pauses in a strategic manner that tells Rachel she is thinking very hard of how to word what she wants to say next as not to offend the girl.

"You just seem so angry lately, Rachel," Shelby finally settles on. "I can't say that I blame you after everything you've been through, but I've gotta tell you that I know from experience that it's not healthy to let these feelings build inside of you. You're bound to explode eventually."

"Who have you exploded on?"

Rachel forces herself not to get offended and instead, uses Shelby's advice as a segue into opportunity.

She looks at the woman before her intently, watching as Shelby just shrugs before handing Rachel yet another dish to dry.

"I've never gotten into a fist fight if that's what you're asking," Shelby finally clarifies.

Rachel flushes red with embarrassment as she turns back to her task of drying dishes. Her black eye seems to throb extra hard with shame at Shelby's remark.

"I was thinking more along the lines of a boyfriend or something," Rachel comments. It's not exactly subtle and she knows it.

"A boyfriend?" Shelby chuckles slightly, like the idea alone of her being in a relationship is some huge joke.

"Do you have one?" Rachel presses, and the question is so strange that Shelby actually stops washing the dishes long enough to look at Rachel like she has three heads.

"Why do you want to know?" Shelby asks. She doesn't sound angry or offended by the question, just curious.

"I don't know," Rachel shrugs, looking away from Shelby where she concentrates a little too hard on drying the already-dry dish inside of her hands. "I've just been hanging out with Quinn a lot lately and she's been telling me about coming here to see Beth, and I started thinking… If Quinn can get to know her daughter, why can't you get to know me? And vice-versa, I guess."

"What do you want to know?" Shelby asks.

"I don't know," Rachel shrugs, even though she knows _exactly_ what she wants to know. "About how I was born and stuff, I guess."

Shelby raises a skeptical eyebrow, sensing Rachel wading into dangerous territory. For a long moment, the only sound between mother and daughter is that of the running sink and for the first time, Rachel senses a semblance of fear in Shelby, like she thinks that Rachel knows the truth even though she couldn't possibly.

"This might be a conversation better left for your fathers, Rachel," Shelby responds. It is a subtle warning. If Rachel hadn't known any better, she wouldn't question it. But she does, and it makes something inside of Rachel snap.

"Which one?"

The ceramic dish inside of Shelby's hand slips and clatters back into the sink. The tinkering of glass tells Rachel that it breaks on the way down. Some of the hot, soapy water splashes out of the basin and soaks her, but she doesn't seem to notice. That is how off-guard Rachel catches her.

"What do you mean?" Shelby forces herself to play dumb, just in case she had heard Rachel wrong, but she looks frightened by Rachel's comment. She knows she hadn't heard anything wrong, and Rachel figures that now that the scope of her knowledge is out in the open, she might as well own it.

"I found something," the girl announces, working her jaw carefully back and forth in an effort to stop that now-familiar sensation of anger from overwhelming her. "You weren't just a surrogate for my dads, were you?"

Shelby's mouth opens and closes several times, but no words ever come out.

"Rachel…" she finally manages. Her voice is meager, shocked. "Did your fathers tell you this."

"I figured it out on my own because they were lying to me!" Rachel feels the band inside of her composure snap. Shelby cringes at her volume. The mother's head darts towards Beth's closed bedroom door, waiting for the sound of a needy cry that might save her from this conversation, but nothing ever comes.

"You owe me answers, Shelby," Rachel continues, backing Shelby further into a corner. "I know that neither Hiram or LeRoy is my real father. So, who is he? I deserve to know."

"Telling you about your biological father is not my story to tell, Rachel," Shelby tells the girl.

She turns off the kitchen sink, drying her hands on the small hand towel draped across the oven door handle before turning away from Rachel, but the answer is a weak one, and Rachel is not buying it.

"When has that ever stopped you before?" Rachel argues. She is not about to let Shelby run away from this conversation like she has run away from every other aspect of Rachel's life.

Still, Shelby seems unwilling to talk. Instead, she keeps walking away towards the living room, and Rachel knows she is going to have to step up her strategy in order to keep her momentum.

"Peter Gabbanelli." Rachel spits out the name she can't help but wonder if Shelby still thinks about. She watches the older woman turn to her, her eyes widening at the scope of Rachel's knowledge. "Is that him? Is that my father?"

"How do you know about Peter?" Shelby asks. Her voice is trembling. She sounds genuinely frightened.

"I'll take that as a yes," Rachel prods for an answer, crossing her arms over her chest.

"How do you know about him, Rachel?" This time, Shelby's voice is stern. It throws even Rachel off. The girl is practically forced to answer as she drops her arms back down to her side.

"You told me that you went to William McKinley," Rachel reminds the woman. "I went to the library to find the archived yearbooks and I went through a few of them looking for you, and I found you. Class of 1994. That was the year I was born. There was a picture in the back of you and Peter and a superlative: _Most Successful Couple._ "

Shelby closes her eyes at Rachel's explanation and takes a deep breath. She remembers that conversation during Rachel's very first private rehearsal with her about a week ago.

At the time, Shelby never would have guessed what Rachel was planning on doing with that information. She hadn't thought twice about offering it. She never would have said anything if she knew.

The woman curses herself under her breath. She was normally so careful when it came to Rachel and the truth about where she came from; that is part of the reason she had left the last time. This time, she had dropped her guard for one second and Rachel had run with it.

She should have stayed in New York.

Shelby wonders if Rachel already knew that her fathers were not who they said they were when she had first approached her for private lessons. Probably, Shelby reasons. Why else would Rachel ask such a favor of her than to butter her up? How much of their relationship – which Shelby thought was finally starting to bud – had been a lie? Likely all of it. Shelby usually prides herself in her ability to see past other people's bullshit, but in this case, she has to admit that her daughter played her like a fiddle.

Shelby shakes her head, still too shocked to speak. She knows that Rachel is angry, and that rightfully, she wants answers, but she had given up that responsibility almost eighteen years ago when she had handed her daughter to two kind, loving men, desperate for a child of their own.

This was a decision they would have to make.

"Rachel," Shelby tells the girl, her voice dropping seriously. "You have to speak to your fathers about this. I understand that you're confused and frustrated, but the only thing that I can tell you is that your fathers love you very, very much, and that they did everything they could to give you a much better life than you would have had otherwise."

"You know what? You're right, Shelby, this isn't your problem."

Sarcasm drips from Rachel's voice as she sweeps towards the door. She had been foolish to think Shelby could be a reliable source of information. Shelby has never been a reliable source of anything in her life.

She isn't surprised when Shelby doesn't try to stop her. Instead, she just storms out of the apartment, unopposed.

Rachel takes the stairs because she is afraid that if she stops moving – even for a period of time as short as an elevator ride – she will lose it.

Storming past the very confused doorman without a word, Rachel marches into the parking lot. She plans on getting into her car and driving somewhere, anywhere, just to clear her head, but before she can get very far, she spots somebody sitting on the curb a few feet in front of her.

Quinn.

The blonde is puffing absently on a cigarette. Judging by the number of empty butts around her, she has damn near smoked an entire pack while Rachel was upstairs arguing with Shelby.

Rachel can only assume that she isn't the only person in the world who is having a bad night.

"I thought you quit," Rachel sighs, feeling her anger diminish even as she speaks as she sits softly next to Quinn.

Historically, Quinn has had the very opposite effect on her. These days, the blonde is the only person who can stop her from exploding.

Quinn grips her lit cigarette between her index and middle fingers. Tapping it gently, she lets the ash fall to the pavement below her as she looks up at Rachel. Something happened in that apartment between her and Shelby just now. Quinn knows that just from looking at Rachel. She feels like the brunette is regressing right in front of her. Where once was a confident, capable woman, Quinn now saw a child much like herself.

She would never admit to this, but Quinn had spent the majority of her formative years studying Rachel Berry like a book. She knew her mannerisms by heart, and Rachel was on the verge of breaking.

"I did," Quinn insists, ignoring the way her heart starts to cleave for Rachel. "How'd it go with Shelby?"

"Not good," Rachel answers before looking down at her hands. She has half a mind to ask Quinn for one of those cigarettes, but reasons she has already added too many vices to her rapidly growing list to have to tackle another one.

"You said that one of your Skank friends knows how to work a computer?" Rachel cuts through the silence after a moment.

Quinn nods her head slowly through a deep pull of her cigarette. "Yup."

"Call her," Rachel orders determinedly. "We're going to have to figure this thing out on our own."


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks again for everybody still reading, reviewing, favoriting, doing the damn thing… A lot of you are very good guessers, but the truth will soon come to light and Rachel will soon realize that she has a lot more people rooting for her than she thinks. All I will say for now is that there is a reason for everybody doing what they are doing.**

 **Thanks again! See you all soon.**

* * *

 **Chapter 8** **:**

On Tuesday morning, Quinn meets Genesis at her locker and slips her a $100 bill from the envelope of saving she keeps under her mattress with instructions to meet at Rachel's house today after school. The other half of the money will come when Genesis gives them what they are looking for.

"That looked sketchy."

Quinn just manages to convince herself that her interaction with Genesis had gone largely unnoticed when Puck comes up behind her.

"Was that a drug deal? Because I know a guy who could probably hook you up for cheaper."

Quinn rolls her eyes. She never should have told Puck her secret about Rachel. He hasn't stopped bothering her since.

Noah Puckerman does not commit to a lot of things, but he loves to play match-maker, and that is a role he will commit to no matter what.

"Now isn't a good time, Puck," Quinn attempts to wave the boy off. "Unless you've decided to enroll in AP Bio with me."

"I already know everything I need to know about biology," Noah wags his eyebrows at Quinn, who only rolls her eyes harder.

"You're pathetic."

"Speaking of pathetic, have you talked to Rachel yet?"

"Will you keep your voice down?" Quinn cringes. Puck has not said anything implicative, but Quinn is understandably wary. She doesn't want so much as a hint of the truth about her feelings towards Rachel getting out. "It's not a good time, alright?"

"If you wait for a good time, you'll be waiting for the rest of your life," Puck points out. He doesn't lower his voice one iota.

"Ugh, isn't your remedial math class that way?" Quinn rolls her eyes, pointing down the hallway in the opposite direction from where she is heading. The last thing that she needs right now is Puck's voice in her ear.

"And isn't you dodging everybody's questions starting to get a little bit old?" Puck counters.

Quinn frowns. She hates that Puck always seems to have a retort for everything. Mostly, she hates that she has no way to defend herself.

"I'm working on it, Puck," Quinn snaps between clenched teeth. "Just give me some time, alright?"

* * *

Despite the promise to Puck, Quinn goes the entire school day without talking to Rachel.

Instead, both Quinn and Rachel exist on their own terms. Quinn avoids Rachel when she can and in turn, Rachel avoids Quinn. The only time they interact is when Quinn tells Rachel that Genesis is coming over after school.

At the final bell of the day, Rachel is at her car practically before the bell even stops ringing. She wants to go home. She hates being at school lately, where she has developed a particular intolerance for jocks and Cheerios and Skanks and even her own friends; where she risks running into Shelby around every corner… Besides, Genesis and Quinn will be over any minute. Rachel wants to be ready.

"Skipping our rehearsals today?"

Rachel is fumbling with her car keys when a familiar voice cuts in from behind her. She freezes, but she doesn't bother to turn around. She knows who that voice belongs to. She just doesn't want to talk to it.

Rachel takes a deep breath, begging the universe to give her a little bit of patience before she turns around to finally face Shelby.

"Clearly, you weren't expecting me at rehearsal if you knew to come find me out here," Rachel tells the woman. Her voice is cool and Shelby actually takes a step back in response to it.

"Call it a gut instinct," the woman forces.

"I told you that I can't sing this week," Rachel reminds Shelby, refusing to give her an inch.

"And I told you that I would still come up with something for you to do," Shelby points out.

Rachel doesn't respond. She refuses to entertain Shelby in that manner. Shelby waits for a moment, but when she realizes that Rachel isn't going to say anything, she frowns.

"Listen Rachel, I'm not going to beat around the bush anymore," Shelby finally sighs after a moment. "I want to talk to you about last night."

Rachel turns to face Shelby fully, placing her hands on her hips as she transforms her face into stone, waiting.

"I know that I didn't give you a lot of explanation yesterday," Shelby presses through Rachel's silence. "To be fair, though, you kind of blindsided me."

"So, are you going to answer my questions now?" Rachel asks. She doesn't sound like she is expecting this, and when Shelby only sighs in response, Rachel realizes that she was right to do so.

"I told you yesterday," Shelby breathes. "You need to talk to your fathers."

"Why would I talk to the people who have been lying to me from the very beginning?" Rachel asks with a tone that makes it very clear that she has decided to include Shelby in this category of people who she considers liars.

"Your fathers love you very much," Shelby insists seriously. This only irritates Rachel further. "I'm sure that if you only expressed your concerns to them, they would be more than glad to answer your questions."

"Are you going to tell them what I know?" Rachel asks sharply, crossing her arms tight over her chest. She feels her jaw twitch in a way that irritates her bruised cheek, but forces herself to ignore it.

Shelby studies Rachel for a long moment, considering her closely.

"I don't know yet," the woman insists, although the second the words are out of her mouth, she realizes that she may have been better off keeping that to herself.

The truth is that Shelby has been going back and forth between calling Rachel's fathers ever since Rachel left her apartment last night.

She had scrolled past the telephone numbers that Hiram and LeRoy had left with her after they quietly sought her out Rachel's sophomore year about a hundred times. She chickened out of actually hitting the call button ever time.

"So, what's so bad then?" Rachel presses. "What's so bad that you can't tell me anything at all?"

"Talk to your fathers," Shelby reiterates, shaking her head slowly. "I know that's not the answer that you want to hear, Rachel, but you need to speak to your dads about this. Maybe we can schedule something. We can all have a conversation together."

"I'll consider it," Rachel tells Shelby with a cool tone that tells Shelby that she will do nothing of the sort. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an important meeting to get to."

* * *

Thanks to Shelby holding her up, by the time Rachel gets home, Quinn and Genesis are already waiting on her front porch.

Genesis looks bored already, Rachel notices, propped against the front door, tapping her feet gently.

Rachel tries to read the girl's face. She doesn't know Genesis. Quinn seems to trust her, but Rachel isn't sure that that's enough for her.

"You're late…" Quinn hisses as Rachel fumbles with her house keys to unlock the front door.

"Shelby cornered me in the parking lot," Rachel whispers. "I think she's going to tell my dads about all this. It'll take her a few days to build the nerve to do it, but we have to move quick."

Quinn looks at Rachel somberly, but nods her head as Rachel pushes through the front door and guides Quinn and Genesis straight into her father Hiram's personal office.

She is convinced that Hiram's computer is their best bet to find answers. He's a lawyer. He is also the one who taught Rachel to take such meticulous care and attention to everything she has ever done. He documents everything, keeps every scrap of paper he has ever received filed into storage.

If she is going to find anything, it's going to be in here.

"Do you want anything to drink?" Rachel asks skeptically as Genesis starts to make herself comfortable at her father's desk. The brunette has no idea what she is supposed to be doing. She's never done anything like this before.

"I'm good," Genesis waves Rachel off.

Rachel swallows as she watches the home screen on her father's computer explode with a burst of light. She was hoping to be able to distract herself in the kitchen for a few moments, keeping herself busy. Instead, she watches as Genesis takes less then thirty seconds to get past the lock screen on her father's computer, offering her full access.

Rachel doesn't bother asking how she'd done it. Instead, she watches Genesis work with an increasing feeling of anxiety bubbling inside of her stomach until she can no longer bear to sit still.

The brunette starts to pace; back and forth and back and forth like a big animal in a small cage until even Genesis has had enough.

"You need to chill, Berry," the girl comments over her shoulder. She never stops working, like a true professional.

"Leave her alone," Quinn defends Rachel. Genesis just rolls her eyes.

Genesis quickly gets back to work, but Rachel continues to be hyper-alert, listening for any signs that her fathers are coming home from work early.

When Rachel hears what sounds like a car door slamming in front of the house, she freezes and perks like a deer that just got trapped in a set of headlights.

"Did you hear that?"

Genesis ignores her. Quinn only shrugs. She hadn't heard anything.

"It sounded like a car door," Rachel insists. "I'm gonna go check."

Rachel shuffles quickly out of the room towards the front of the house.

"Your girl is high strung, Fabray," Genesis comments over the sound of her rapid typing the moment Rachel is out of the room.

"She's not my girl," Quinn retorts, but the denial only makes Genesis laugh.

"Whatever," she comments under her breath. "What's the name of the guy we're looking for again?"

"Peter Gabbanelli."

Genesis turns over her shoulder, raising a very skeptical eyebrow towards Quinn. "How do you spell that?"

Quinn sighs and pulls the William McKinley 1994 yearbook that she had stolen from the school library out of her backpack. She flips through the pages until she finds the man's senior photo and slides the yearbook in front of Genesis.

"That's him," she tells her, tapping her finger against the photo.

"Handsome," Genesis comments off-hand. Quinn can't tell if she's being serious or not as she starts to type the name into the search engine without even having to look at the keyboard like Quinn still has to do whenever she is typing.

"Got it," Genesis nods to the computer screen the moment she hits the enter key.

"How did you find him so quickly?" Quinn asks, astonished.

"I typed his name into the search bar," Genesis rolls her eyes, indicating that it didn't require a certain level of genius _or_ $200 to find what she had just found.

Quinn rolls her eyes, standing up to look over Genesis's shoulder as the girl double clicks a link that reveals a scanned document that looks so old, that it had been typed on a typewriter.

"What is that?" Quinn asks, squinting at the old document in an attempt to decipher it.

"It looks like a restraining order," Genesis breathes.

Quinn takes a closer look and realizes that Genesis is only half right. It is not a restraining order, but a motion to file a restraining order. It had been filed against Peter by Hiram's law office on behalf of Shelby in September of 1994.

At the very bottom is a large, red stamp where the judge had rejected the motion. Quinn can't help but wonder why it had been rejected, but that doesn't make her feel any better about what Peter may or may not have done to Shelby to trigger its necessity in the first place.

"Shit…" Quinn breathes. "What's that about?"

"It's redacted," Genesis answers, scrolling through the document where the reason for the requested petition is entirely blacked out. "It looks like you and Berry might have a genuine conspiracy theory on your hands, Fabray."

"Is there anything else you can search?" Quinn asks, almost desperately.

"I can look into the police database," Genesis answers, "But it looks like the reason the judge rejected the petition for a restraining order was because no police report was ever filed. It might be a dead end."

Quinn nods as Genesis gets back to work and Rachel rounds back into the office.

"The coast is clear," Rachel informs them. Quinn notices that she is still whispering despite her assurances. "It was just a neighbor. Have you found anything?"

Quinn and Genesis shoot each other a quick look. They both silently agree not to tell Rachel about the restraining order until it becomes absolutely necessary. Rachel is already high-strung enough.

"I'm just getting ready to look into the police database," Genesis answers quickly. "If Peter Gabbanelli is in here, then all of his information will be too; from his address to his grandmother's maiden name."

Genesis plugs a flash drive into Rachel's father's computer. When it opens, an encryption key appears across the screen that looks to Rachel as though it is written in some alien language. But it must be familiar to Genesis, because with just a few strokes of the keyboard, she bypasses it and the database appears across the screen.

"Why would Peter be in the police database?" Rachel asks. Genesis flashes the brunette a look as though to tell her not to be so naïve, but she decides to keep her mouth shut.

"If he's not, I have other ideas too," Genesis says instead. "This is just the easiest source of information if Peter's ever been arrested."

"Will my dad get in trouble if you're doing this on his computer?" Rachel asks, pulling her lower lip between her teeth nervously.

Quinn watches the girl from the corner of the room, sensing her losing her cool. She has never seen Rachel so nervous before. Normally, the singer was the portrait of confidence. She hadn't even been nervous when they'd taken the stage for Nationals in front of the entire country last year…

"No, I masked his IP address," Genesis answers casually.

"Woah…" Rachel breathes, fascinated as Genesis types Peter's name into the search engine.

"Is this him?" she asks after a moment, moving aside to show Rachel the picture of the man.

Rachel stares at the boy in the picture. There is no mistaking Peter Gabbanelli, even though this alleged mugshot of him lacks the grace and poise he'd had on display for his senior yearbook photos.

Here, he looks wired and gaunt. There are dark circles under his big, brown eyes. His hair is longer and wild, sticking up in every direction. The only similarity is that he still has that same boyish face. He doesn't look any older than he had in the yearbook.

"That's him," Rachel confirms with a sharp breath. She was hoping that Genesis wouldn't find anything on Peter in the police records, but there is no mistaking what she is looking at.

"He was arrested in July of 1994," Genesis informs Rachel.

"For what?" Rachel asks, appalled.

"Petty theft," Genesis answers, scrolling through the page. "At some gas station in Lima. I don't recognize it. It must have closed down years ago."

Rachel leans in close, reading the description of Peter's arrest over Genesis's shoulder. Even Quinn stands up to see.

The blonde takes in Peter's mugshot closely. The man looks like Rachel; a lot like Rachel, in fact. Quinn used to think that Rachel and Shelby looked so much alike that there was hardly room for anybody else's genes, but here she is proven wrong.

Spending so much time comparing Beth between her and Noah has made Quinn somewhat of an expert at identifying quirky, minor features. Rachel and Peter have the same naturally wavy hair, and the same frown, which unfortunately, Quinn has become quite familiar with on Rachel lately. Most stunningly of all, Rachel has Peter's eyes down to the very last detail. The longer Quinn stares at Peter's eyes in that mugshot, the more she feels like she is looking at Rachel…

Quinn forces herself to turn away from the photo and towards the description of Peter's arrest.

He had been arrested for petty theft in July of 1994. Two months later, Shelby had filed a restraining order against him. Quinn wonders if the two events are interrelated, and what had happened in that two-month time span to warrant Shelby taking such drastic action.

"What happened with the case?" Rachel finally asks Genesis.

"Peter got two years of probation," Genesis answers.

"Was he arrested any other time?"

"Once for possession," Genesis asks, continuing to scroll through the page. "Marijuana, less than an ounce. It was in Nebraska three years ago. He got probation for that, too."

"Nebraska?" Rachel breathes.

"It looks like that's where he lives now," Genesis answers. "Foster, Nebraska."

"Where is that?" Rachel asks. Genesis only shrugs.

"No idea," she answers. "But I think you've got everything you need."

"Wait, you're leaving?" Rachel asks, watching as Genesis starts to pack away her equipment.

"I printed a copy of his records," Genesis nods. "It'll tell you everything."

"You printed that on my father's printer?" Rachel asks, appalled as she rushes towards the printer in the corner of the room just in time to watch it chug out all of its secrets about Peter Gabbanelli.

"Just make sure you take everything out of the tray," Genesis shrugs, unconcerned. "I can see myself out. And don't forget, Quinn, you still owe me a hundred bucks."

Genesis shuts down Hiram Berry's computer, showing herself into the hallway as Rachel continues to collect the pages on Peter from the printer.

Quinn cringes as she watches Genesis leave. She wishes that she had kept quiet about the money Quinn had paid her to get her here today. She hardly wanted Rachel to know how much she was willing to spend on her.

"$100 an hour is a pretty steep price," Rachel finally comments after they hear the front door open and close again.

"It was $200 actually," Quinn responds. Now that the cat was out of the bag, she might as well be honest. "And it was your money from the DNA kit, anyway. What do the papers say?"

Quinn changes the subject quickly as Rachel glances down at the generous stack of paperwork in her hands.

"Peter was born in Brooklyn," she answers, reading quickly. "He moved to Lima in 1992."

"Me and Genesis found something else while you were out front checking to see if your dads were home," Quinn tells Rachel hesitantly. "Shelby tried to file a restraining order against Peter in September of 1994. A judge denied it though."

Rachel looks up at Quinn. She tries to hide the concern in her eyes, but fails.

"Why did she do that?"

"I don't know," Quinn shakes her head. "The entire document was redacted. We couldn't read the description."

"Maybe it had something to do with him getting arrested?" Rachel speculates. "I mean… she was only a few months away from giving birth to me then. Maybe she got freaked out by the arrest?"

"Maybe…" Quinn sighs, but she doesn't sound convinced. The more they learn about all of this, the stranger it gets.

"This paperwork gives an address," Rachel tells Quinn, quickly changing the subject. "310 Schneider St. Foster, Nebraska. There's a phone number too."

"Are you gonna call him?" Quinn asks.

"I don't know," Rachel shakes her head. "I feel like I have to do something with this information… With all the money you gave Genesis to get it, and all."

Rachel's eyes flicker up to Quinn, bearing into her hard. Quinn forces herself to look down at her feet.

"It's not a big deal," Quinn responds. "We got this far. At this point I think I want to know the truth almost as much as you do."

Rachel nods in agreement.

"You're a good friend, Quinn," Rachel smiles at her. Reaching over, she grabs onto Quinn's hand and squeezes it gently like she is trying to prove that she means what she says.

At the touch, Quinn feels a warm shiver travel up her spine, one that she certainly does not associate with just friendship.

Quinn looks down at their interlaced hands and then back up at Rachel. Maybe it is just Quinn making things up in the heat of the moment, but she thinks that Rachel is looking her funny, like she too had just felt that spark that Quinn had felt.

Rachel is staring at Quinn like she would one of the wonders of the world, and suddenly, Quinn wonders if Puck had been right with all of his unsolicited advice; maybe there is hope for the two of them after all.

Quinn's heart begins to flutter hard against her ribs. The sparks radiating between Rachel and Quinn start to pinch and bite the longer Quinn goes without responding to them and suddenly, like a magnetic force, Quinn feels her body pull towards Rachel's.

She leans into Rachel's body, seemingly devoid of all control. When Rachel doesn't immediately pull away, she feels her confidence pick up. She leans in closer and closer and is finally starting to think that this is it when –

"Rachel?"

The front door snaps open and Rachel turns away from Quinn and towards the sound of her father's voice so quickly that Quinn almost falls on her face.

"Come on…"

Like the last several seconds never happened, Rachel grabs Quinn by the wrist and drags her out of her father's office.

Rachel sounds rushed, frightened even. Quinn is still so caught up in what _almost_ happened that she lets Rachel drag her along like a ragdoll. She manages to pull the both of them into the kitchen, where Rachel busies herself in pretending to be preparing an afternoon snack just as her father LeRoy appears in front of them.

"What are you doing, Star?" he asks the girl, sounding more than a little suspicious.

"We were just getting something to eat, Daddy," Rachel smiles, but she is acting.

"Do the two of you have more group projects?" LeRoy asks. He tips his eyebrows up, nodding towards the thick stack of paperwork in Rachel's hand.

The brunette nods, but falters. She tucks the papers tight into her chest so that LeRoy cannot possibly catch a glimpse of what they actually say.

"Yup," Rachel nods, popping the _p_ at the end of her word sharply. "Quinn was just leaving, though."

Ten seconds ago, Quinn had been on the cusp of kissing Rachel Berry for the very first time. She had honestly thought that Rachel was going to reciprocate, but now, she is shoving her through her house and out the front door like she was some intruder. By the time she is out on the front porch, she wonders if the almost-kiss ever really happened at all.

"Thanks for everything, Quinn," Rachel whispers. Her voice is tight and rushed. "I'll see you in school tomorrow, okay?"

"Sure…" Quinn breathes. Her voice is stunned and her face even more so. She has no idea what just happened, but before she can even think to ask, Rachel slams the door in her face, leaving her alone on the Berry's front porch.

* * *

Quinn doesn't want to go home, but she doesn't know where else to go.

The blonde spends a long time circling the city of Lima in her car until the late afternoon bleeds into the early evening and she starts to get caught in rush hour traffic.

She hardly wants to sit in traffic, so Quinn pulls of the main road and drives without even realizing where she's going. When she ends up on the other side of Lima, into a familiar parking lot, she is not all surprised that this is where her subconscious has sent her.

"Quinn…" Shelby breathes, surprised when she answers the door to her apartment only to find the blonde on the other side. "I wasn't expecting you. Is everything alright?"

"Kind of," Quinn shrugs as Shelby steps out of the doorway to make room for Quinn to come inside.

"What's going on?" Shelby demands. She sounds worried.

"Nobody is hurt or dead or anything like that," Quinn clarifies, but that does nothing to ease the tension on Shelby's face. "If you're busy I can come back."

"No, it's fine," Shelby waves off Quinn's suggestion. "I just dropped Beth off at the sitter. There's a conference tonight for all of the glee coaches in northwestern Ohio."

"I didn't know they did stuff like that…" Quinn stalls, sitting down on Shelby's couch. She looks around Shelby's apartment. Now that the older woman has mentioned it, she can tell that Beth is not here because there are no toys or anything strewn across the floor. This is the cleanest Quinn has ever seen Shelby's apartment.

"It's a complete waste of time if you ask me," Shelby rolls her eyes as if to emphasize her point. "They call it a social hour, but it's more like a lion's den. Everybody is scoping out the competition, looking for ways to one up each other. I'm proud to say that nobody has managed to outwit me yet."

Quinn swallows. She can't help but to think that if her and Rachel have it their way, they will be the first.

Shelby glances at Quinn, looking for a reaction. When she doesn't get one, the woman frowns and lowers herself into the chair across from Quinn.

"Why did you come here today, Quinn?" she finally asks. She is still staring at Quinn, watching as the blonde bows her head and takes a deep breath, trying buy herself time to figure out what to say next.

"I know that you know about what Rachel found out about her dads," Quinn finally says. She doesn't look at Shelby when she says it, but hears the woman take a sharp breath and knows that she is surprised by the news.

"How do you know about that?" Shelby asks.

"I was kind of the first person she told," Quinn admits, fidgeting with her fingers, still not looking at Shelby. "It all started with some stupid biology project about blood typing. I was Rachel's lab partner. She figured out that neither of her fathers could possibly be related to her through that."

"Did she tell you that I told her that she needs to speak with her fathers about all of this?" Shelby asks Quinn seriously. The blonde girl folds her lips together and nods. Shelby takes a deep breath. Quinn cannot read what she's thinking.

"I appreciate you helping Rachel, Quinn, and I am glad that she has somebody who cares about her as much as you do, but that doesn't change anything."

Quinn shakes her head. Shelby is missing the point she is trying to make, and although Quinn knows that Rachel would kill her if she knew that she had run straight to Shelby after everything they found out about Peter today, something about the information that Genesis had given them isn't sitting right with Quinn. She has the information, but no clarity, and clarity is exactly what Quinn is going to need before she can decide what her and Rachel are going to do next.

No computer hacker or biology lab could give them what they need. There are only two people on this planet who know the truth, and one of them is sitting right in front of her.

"Why did you file a restraining order against Peter?" Quinn finally asks.

The comment throws Shelby off guard. She stares at Quinn for a long moment, but slowly, the shock wears off of Shelby's face, replaced with a small smile, much to Quinn's surprise.

"I don't know why I keep underestimating the two of you," the woman shakes her head with a soft chuckle.

"Please, Shelby," Quinn begs. "Why did you have one?"

Shelby's face hardens.

"Peter Gabbanelli is not a good person, Quinn," Shelby tells the blonde seriously. "I said this to Rachel and I will say it to you too; you two are both better off just forgetting all of this."

"I don't think Rachel will stop until she has the answers she's looking for," Quinn admits.

Shelby nods in agreement before leaning back against her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.

"She certainly is stubborn," Shelby admits. "She gets that from Peter. You can tell her that luckily, that is the only thing that she got from that man."

"She looks like him," Quinn points out before she can stop herself. Shelby folds her lips together, but forces herself to nod.

"I prefer to think she looks like me."

"Did he do something bad to you?" Quinn asks before she can consider that it might be rude to do so.

Shelby pauses, considering her answer, but her face remains stoic.

"He gave me my daughter, Quinn," she finally settles. "I was young and stupid. I thought that I was in love, but things didn't work out that way. I know that my relationship with Rachel is far from what I ever imagined it would be, but she's here. She's happy and she's healthy and she's destined to have more success in this world than either one of us could ever imagine. No matter what happened, or how she came to be, I will always be grateful for her. You can understand that, can't you?"

Quinn feels her head bob slowly up and down. She certainly can understand. There had been a time not so long ago where she had been young and stupid too. Hell, she still is young and stupid.

Embarrassed, Quinn looks down into her lap. Shelby had spent the first several weeks of the school year trying to relate to Quinn only to have Quinn try to push her away. Now, Quinn realizes that Shelby was being truthful with her when she told her she had battled the same demons that she had.

Had her filing a restraining order against Peter been Shelby's stupid ploy to savor a relationship with her daughter like attempting to get CPS called on Shelby had been Quinn's? Had Shelby, like Quinn seen how foolish her plan was and had given up on it halfway through? Had Shelby, like Quinn had anybody to guide her through it? Or had she done it all on her own?

Quinn doesn't know, and suddenly, she's too embarrassed to ask.

"Why can't you just talk to Rachel?" Quinn finally sighs. Her voice is much more desperate than she intends, but the pain inside of it is astounding. "You had no problem breaking the contract you have with her fathers before. Why is it such a big deal to you all of a sudden?"

"This has nothing to do with the contract, Quinn," Shelby shakes her head. "It's for Rachel, and it's for her fathers."

"You're gonna tell them, aren't you?" Quinn asks. Shelby sighs. She almost looks apologetic.

"I think that I have to, Quinn," she admits. "I know it doesn't sound like it, but I am doing right by Rachel telling them. I hope you can understand. We both only want what's right for our children."

Quinn looks up at Shelby, surprised by her comment. The woman is speaking airily. When Quinn looks at her, she realizes that she is not looking directly at her, but past her. Her eyes are glazed like she is stuck inside of some distant memory.

"The choices we made weren't always easy," Shelby continues after a moment. "But we made them. Just wait a few years. Wait until Beth is old enough to look you in the eye and tell you that you ruined her life. You'll never understand how badly that hurts until you experience it. I hope to God you never have to."

Quinn swallows. She has never felt particularly sympathetic towards Shelby Corcoran before, but tonight, she feels that she actually does feel bad for the woman.

"Like I said Quinn, I'm not stupid enough to believe that Rachel will just drop this, I just want you to be wary about what you find. Whatever research you're doing on your own, you're only hearing a part of the story. If Rachel's fathers agree to tell Rachel what happened, that's up to them, but until then… I'm sorry I can't give you or Rachel the answers you want. Just know that I do not regret one decision I made when I was pregnant with Rachel. Not one."

Quinn nods her head emptily.

"You're a good friend, Quinn," Shelby smiles at the blonde, silently emphasizes just how much she appreciates this.

"Rachel is a good friend," Quinn sighs, standing up from her seat, indicating that she thinks it might be time for her to leave. "I'm just trying to learn to stop screwing up all the time."

* * *

Later that night, Quinn sits on her laptop in her bedroom.

The room is completely dark with the exception of the dull glow from her computer screen. One hand props her tired head up. The other clicks absently through a series of Google results she had accumulated trying to do her own research on Rachel's father.

She has been at this for hours. Halfway through, she had been interrupted by a phone call from Genesis. She thought the girl had found out more information about Peter Gabbanelli, but the call hadn't been informative, it had been a warning.

The Skanks were planning on jumping Rachel and Quinn tomorrow after school. Genesis had heard them planning their revenge when she had met up with them after leaving Rachel's house earlier. She doesn't know the details, only that it's going to happen.

She hasn't told Rachel yet; she doesn't know how to. She feels far too guilty knowing that if it hadn't been for her, the Skanks never would have been after Rachel in the first place.

To avoid her guilt, Quinn distracts herself on Google.

She clicks through the Wikipedia page for Foster, Nebraska, the small town that Genesis had told her that Peter Gabbanelli had last been known to live in.

He still lives there as far as Quinn knows. She had finally built up the nerve to call the phone number that Genesis had left with the address about an hour ago, and while nobody had answered, the voicemail was set up, confirming that it belonged to Peter.

The small town's Wikipedia page is just about as dull as the town itself seems to be. Foster is a small village in northeastern Nebraska that bolsters a population of 51 people. Peter Gabbanelli is one of them.

Before Quinn can stop herself, she turns to Google Maps. Foster is a twelve-and-a-half-hour drive from Lima.

The blonde swallows. She knows that what she is thinking about doing is crazy, but time and secrecy are no longer on their side. Shelby said it herself, she is planning on telling Rachel's fathers what they're up to and she would likely do that sooner rather than later. Rachel seems to be under the impression that her fathers would but an immediate end to their search if they found out, and Quinn can't help but to agree. Finding out what they need to know from Peter Gabbanelli himself would not only solve Rachel's father problem, it would also solve their Skank problem...

Her car would get them there. Quinn has plenty of cash for gas and food and cheap motel rooms. If they left early in the morning pretending they were going to school, it would be hours before their parents even knew they were gone. By the time they did realize it, they would be long gone and nobody would know where to look.

Sure, Rachel and Quinn would have a lot to answer for when they did come back home, but then again, so would Rachel's fathers. As for Quinn, she is an expert at getting into trouble. Her mother might ground her for a few weeks, but she doesn't care.

Now, she would just have to convince Rachel.

Quinn stares at the map still glowing in front of her on the computer screen as she picks up her portable house phone; the one she has been forced to use ever since breaking her cell.

She dials Rachel's cell number, hoping that the brunette will not ask her why she has her phone number committed to memory.

"Hey Quinn."

Rachel answers the phone and knows that it is her before Quinn can even say a word. The idea makes the blonde's heart flutter momentarily before she remembers that in the age of technology, this is not fate as much as it is Rachel's contact list.

"I have an idea," Quinn breathes quickly, blowing through formal greetings.

Formalities terrify the blonde when it comes to Rachel. There is nothing formal about the brunette, which is likely why she is about to propose to the girl that the best thing for them to do right now is to drop everything, not tell a soul, and get in Quinn's car together and drive west until they reach Foster, Nebraska to find Rachel's estranged, possibly dangerous biological father.

But Quinn's conscious is blinded to all of the things that can go wrong by Rachel. The only thing she can think about is their interaction from earlier; the moment Quinn knows she saw Rachel's eyes swimming for her just as much as hers were for Rachel.

For a split second, Rachel had seen something in a lost cause like her, Quinn knows it. She had missed her opportunity then, but knows that she can create a chance for it to happen again.

Twelve-and-a-half hours in a car together seemed like just the opportunity she is looking for.

"What is it?" Rachel asks.

"How do you feel about a road trip?" Quinn suggests, and the way that Rachel pauses, the blonde can tell that she has no idea what she is implying.

"A road trip?"

"Yup," Quinn swallows, and then decides to just go for it. "Have you ever been to Nebraska, Berry?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello again! Real quick, just to respond to what a lot of you were saying in your reviews (and thank you all for them btw), long story short, Rachel cannot just go to her fathers and ask her questions like Shelby suggested because that would make for a dull story ;) Quinn has her own reasons for doing what she is doing as well. She is weighing out the dangers of everything to try to get her own clarity with Rachel and still, in a way, with Beth. Just remember that both girls are incredibly vulnerable emotionally right now and are prone to irrational decisions. Unfortunately, sometimes you've just got to learn the hard way.**

 **More answers to come next, I promise.**

* * *

 **Chapter 9** :

Quinn shows up in front of Rachel's house the next morning driving the BMW SUV that her father had bought her for her 15th birthday; Russel Fabray's version of trying to win his daughter's affection after a bitter divorce.

Of course, Quinn knew that the present was all about control, and she wasn't about to forget how her father had disowned her during her pregnancy, but she wasn't about to return such a sweet ride in exchange for her honor. Her honor wouldn't get her to Foster, Nebraska.

Her car however, would.

Inside of her bedroom, Rachel hears Quinn honk the horn sharply twice to let Rachel know she is outside.

The brunette flips her long hair over her shoulder and hurries through the last of the note she is leaving on her desk for her fathers.

She had spent a long time debating whether or not she should leave one, but realized that it was her best bet in preventing her fathers from reporting her as a missing person.

It says nothing about where she is going or what she plans on doing, only that she is going on a road trip with Quinn and that she will be back in a couple of days.

When she is finished, Rachel takes her time to re-read the letter, making sure she has left no clues about her whereabouts anywhere in its contents.

She considers leaving the letter unsigned for a moment, but in the end, her guilt wins her over. She scribbles a quick _Love You_ at the bottom and signs her name, just as Quinn lays on her horn from outside, imploring Rachel to move faster.

Rachel grabs her backpack, full not of schoolwork, but of essentials to get her through the next few days, and leaves the note on her bed. She is confident that by the time her fathers find it, she will be halfway to Nebraska.

"You're off to school early this morning, Star."

Rachel had been hoping to blow past her fathers without exchanging any words that might make them suspicious, but as she tramples down the stairs, she notices that they are both still sitting at the dining room table.

They are dressed for work. Hiram has his coffee in one hand and the newspaper in the other. His glasses hang low off the bridge of his nose like they always do when he is struggling to read with his aging prescription. LeRoy is picking at the last of his breakfast. Rachel notices that they have put a plate out for her too, but she has no intention on eating this morning.

"I have some stuff to do for glee," Rachel lies.

"Okay, don't work too hard, honey, and please make sure you stop for breakfast."

Her Daddy Hiram looks up from behind his newspaper and smiles at her so warmly that she damn near thinks to go outside and tell Quinn that this trip is off. She finds that it is very difficult to give her fathers such a cold shoulder when they are acting so paternal and loving.

"I will, Daddy," Rachel stutters, forcing her voice straight.

"We'll see you after school," LeRoy chimes in and it just about breaks Rachel's heart. "We love you, Star."

Rachel cringes. She cannot even entertain the idea of responding to him, so she doesn't.

It's not that she doesn't believe that her father's love her. She does, really, but in her mind, that does not justify them lying to her for almost eighteen years. That's her entire lifetime, and if she cannot trust them, that means she is going to have to do this on her own.

With that reminder in mind, Rachel just smiles, kisses her fathers' cheeks goodbye, and tells them that she will see them later.

Rachel makes her way out of her house towards Quinn's car.

The blonde is sitting in the driver's seat, fidgeting with the buttons of her radio. She is wearing sweats and sunglasses so big they cover half her face. She looks like she is going out on the lamb. Rachel looks down at her argyle skirt and sweater and wonders if she, like Quinn, should have dressed for comfort. After all, she is going to be sitting in this car for a long time.

"Nice skirt," Quinn nods to the brunette as Rachel tosses her backpack into the backseat before making herself comfortable in the passenger seat.

"I thought my dads would think it was weird if I didn't dress like I normally do," Rachel frowns.

"Did you bring a change of clothes?" Quinn asks.

"Just for tomorrow."

Quinn rolls her eyes. "Jesus Berry, you really do suck at sneaking around. You're lucky you have me."

"Just drive the car," Rachel mutters, snapping her seatbelt into place before falling back into her seat.

She is starting to get nervous. Actually, she has been nervous, but now that the time has finally come for them to leave, it is harder for her to pretend that she isn't.

Quinn smirks at the brunette. It is just the two of them now with nothing in between. It feels so right and so long at the same time.

Rachel is the only person in the world that Quinn would do something like this with. She is the only person that Quinn finds she can be around without getting bored of. It might be selfish, but despite what they might find on the other side of this trip, Quinn is excited what it might mean for them. Together.

"I like this new Rachel Berry," Quinn tells the girl, throwing her car into drive.

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Living on the edge," Quinn explains. "It's a bit freeing, isn't it?"

Rachel doesn't respond, but Quinn does not seem to be looking for a response. Instead, she peels away from the curb and down Rachel's block, heading west towards Foster, Nebraska.

* * *

They drive for several hours before stopping for lunch.

Rachel doesn't want to stop at all, but Quinn needs gas. Plus, she is starving and knows that Rachel must be too.

Rachel's cell phone starts to ring just as Quinn is getting ready to pull off the highway.

"It's my dad," Rachel swallows, looking down at her phone. Her dads never call her during the day. The school has probably notified them of Rachel's unexcused absence.

"Don't answer it," Quinn tells Rachel. She glances at the brunette out of the corner of her eye. She is nervous, Quinn can tell; and they have only been on the road for a couple of hours…

Rachel nods at Quinn, but folds her lips inwards as her phone silences. The device is only quiet for a couple of seconds before it starts to ring again. Her father seems determined.

"I should answer," Rachel tells Quinn, chewing on her thumbnail.

"No way," Quinn tells her seriously.

"I'll make something up! I can buy us a few more hours!" Rachel insists even as the phone goes quiet before immediately starting to ring for a third time.

The noise is starting to get to Quinn. It is loud and obnoxious and it is starting to give her a headache.

What would give her even more of a headache however, is if Rachel answers that phone and ruins everything before they could even really get started.

With that in mind, Quinn reaches over and snatches the phone out of Rachel's hands. Before the brunette even knows what Quinn is doing, the blonde rolls down her car window and throws Rachel's cellphone out onto the desolate highway.

The silence is welcome. It relieves Quinn's headache immediately, but that relief is only temporary. A moment later, Rachel is screaming in her ear.

"What the hell did you do that for?" the brunette shrieks.

"Because you were going to answer for your dad and ruin everything!" Quinn argues back.

"We need my phone for the GPS, you moron!" Rachel argues back. "Your phone looks like you dropped it off the Empire State Building. You can't even see the screen. How are we supposed to get there now?"

Quinn only shrugs. She seems indifferent about their dilemma, which annoys Rachel even more.

"I guess you're gonna have to learn how to read a map."

"Turn this car around," Rachel demands. She is taking deep, walloping breaths like she is on the verge of a panic attack as she swivels around inside of the passenger seat trying to catch a glimpse of her cell on the side of the road, but it is long gone.

Rachel falls back into her seat. The panic is starting to sit tight inside of her chest. This was a terrible idea. What the hell had she been thinking?

"I'm not turning around," Quinn insists, shaking her head.

"Turn around, Quinn!" Rachel tries to yell back, but she is breathing heavily now, and that is impeding her ability to raise her voice.

"Okay, that's it!" Quinn finally snaps. She has had enough. Rachel might have been growing on Quinn in a way that not even the blonde can explain, but she is not about to have the brunette screaming inside of her ear for the next eight hours.

The blonde finds an exit up ahead for a service station and she takes it. She doesn't say a word until she has skidded to a halt in front of the pump.

"You need to relax," Quinn tells Rachel seriously. "This is a confined space and the two of us are going to be sharing it for a long time. You can't be freaking out this entire time."

"You just threw my phone out the window!" Rachel argues.

"And you can get another one when we get back," Quinn reasons. "Take a breath, Berry. You need it."

Rachel tries to listen to Quinn's advice. She leans back against her seat, closes her eyes, and tries desperately to think about anything other than her fathers wondering where she is and her smashed cell phone on the side of the highway somewhere in the middle of Indiana or Illinois or whatever state they were currently in…

She thinks about Quinn, how she didn't know if the two of them had been in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time to ultimately lead to this trip, and how ultimately, she didn't care. It was one way, and then it was the other, and the only constant through it all had been Quinn.

Surprisingly, the thought helps her calm down. Slowly, she opens her eyes again.

"Okay…" the brunette reasons with herself.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Quinn asks.

"I don't know," Rachel admits, but that answer seems to satisfy Quinn enough.

"Well, just remember, I can careen off the highway again anytime you need a minute."

Quinn smirks at Rachel, trying to keep the mood light. Much the blonde's surprise and relief, Rachel smiles back.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't."

"What's an adventure without a little extra adventure, Berry," Quinn shrugs before finally stepping out of the car.

"Where are you going?" Rachel calls after her, noticing that she has not turned to the gas pump, but towards the old, log supermarket at the end of the parking lot that is so rundown, it looks as though it doesn't even have electricity.

"Inside," Quinn tells Rachel. "We're gonna need a map."

* * *

The man behind the counter who sells Quinn a pocket atlas and two cheap, gas station sandwiches tells her that she is currently in a town called Moline, Illinois; a town whose proudest accomplishment to date is that it is the birthplace of the John Deere tractor company.

When she walks outside, the sun is high in the sky and it is blinding. She pulls her oversized sunglasses back down over her face and walks towards Rachel, who is filling her BMW with gas.

As Quinn gets closer, she notices that the tank is long full, but Rachel still seems to be staring off in the distance. Quinn follows the brunette's line of sight. She is staring at a payphone about a hundred feet in front of her. Quinn didn't think they even made those things anymore.

"Thinking about calling your dads, Berry?" Quinn approaches the brunette cautiously, careful not to startle the girl.

"I didn't think I would feel so guilty about this," Rachel admits airily. "God, they must be so worried."

"How fast do you think they would drive here if they knew where we were?"

Somehow, Rachel manages a small smile. "I don't even know where we are."

"Moline, Illinois," Quinn informs her. "Home of John Deere tractors."

"What?" Rachel raises a very confused eyebrow.

"Never mind," Quinn waves her off quickly. "You know that you can't call them though, right?"

"I know," Rachel nods sadly.

"We should get going," Quinn says quickly, trying to steer the conversation away from this dangerous path it is headed down. She tosses her car keys into Rachel's hand and makes her way around the car towards the driver's seat. "You're driving. I need a nap."

* * *

Shelby is no longer expecting Rachel to show up for their daily after-school rehearsals anymore now that the girl had all but admitted that the whole thing had been a sham to weasel information about Peter Gabbanelli out of her.

As a direct result, Shelby decides to channel her frustrations on yet another failure with her daughter into her work. She doubles-down on Troubletones rehearsals; two-a-day rehearsals, one before school and another one after.

Shelby had thought that this brutal schedule would feel good. At least she had thought that it would make her forget about Rachel. Whipping a group of ungrateful teenagers into shape used to be what helped her sleep at night during her Vocal Adrenaline days. Maybe it is a sign of her newfound motherhood, or maybe she is just getting old, but she finds that it no longer has the same effect.

Will Schuester makes his way into the auditorium just as a group of her Troubletones start to complain that the stage lights are too hot and their feet are starting to hurt from all the dancing.

Normally, Shelby would rip those girls a new one for daring to complain, but if there is one thing that Shelby hates more than complainers, it is spies, so her group gets a reprieve from her wrath, which is instead focused in on Will Schuester.

"You do know that this is a closed rehearsal, right Will?" Shelby asks. Her tone is rather cool. Her relationship with will has been rather symbiotic since she had come to William McKinley, but today, he actually looks afraid of her.

But then, Shelby realizes that it is not her that he is afraid of. He is not cowering away from her like most people do when she snaps. He is coming closer, and he is not smiling.

Shelby feels her face fall. Something is wrong, she can feel it.

She hates that she keeps getting blindsided by people. Mostly, she hates that she always seems to be the last person to know when something bad happens.

"I'm not here to spy," Will promises. "Principal Figgins just called me into his office. Apparently, the Berry men tried to report Rachel as a missing person this afternoon."

"Excuse me?" Shelby asks, her voice dipping low.

"I don't really know the details, just that they called the police and then they called the school, telling them to please contact them if they see or hear from Rachel." Will passes along the information and then he hesitates. "I thought that you might want to know."

"What do you mean they _tried_ to report her as a missing person?" Shelby asks, standing up to her full height. She feels her breathing start to increase despite herself. She had read an article once in one of those parenting magazines in the waiting room of Beth's pediatrician's office. Teenagers go missing constantly. Nine times out of ten, they're runaways who show back up eventually, but there is always that one time; the possibility that every parent fears the most.

"Apparently she left a note," Will explains. "It didn't say where she was going, but that she would be back in a few days. The police told the Berrys that because she left a note, and because she is so close to being eighteen, they were treating this like a runaway. They won't file a report or put out an APB unless Rachel doesn't return by the end of the week."

"But who knows what can happen by then!" Shelby breathes, feeling that final thread inside of her snap. She takes a deep breath, trying to think logically about what her next steps should be, but logic hardly seems helpful in this case.

Something is bubbling inside of her stomach like lava rising inside of a volcano. At first, Shelby doesn't recognize the feeling, but after a moment, she places it; it's fear.

"I know Shelby, please try not to panic," Will begs her.

"My daughter is missing and you're telling me not to panic?" Shelby hisses. Her voice is so venomous that Will actually takes a step back.

"There's more," he risks saying. He looks unsure as to whether or not he should continue, afraid that Shelby might choose to kill the messenger.

"What?"

"Rachel said in her note that she's with Quinn."

"Quinn?" Shelby raises an eyebrow. She seems genuinely confused. She knows that a strange relationship has been budding between Rachel and the blonde, but it hardly seemed likely that the two of them would be running off to God-knows-where together.

Then, realization suddenly clicks and Shelby feels her entire face go pale.

"They found him…" Shelby whispers under her breath.

"Found who?" Will raises an eyebrow at her, confused, but before he can even finish getting out the question, Shelby is heading towards the auditorium exit.

"I have to go, Will!" the woman calls over her shoulder. "Release my Troubletones for me! Tell them that they are done with rehearsal until further notice!"

* * *

Shelby sits inside of her Range Rover, stuck in the late afternoon traffic that is notorious for littering Lima's main street as she drives towards the Berry home, trying to compose herself in the hopes that by the time she arrives, she will have enough nerve to knock on the front door.

She knows where they live. She has driven past the house a hundred times.

She is ashamed to admit that, but the Berrys still live in the same home that they had when Shelby was eighteen and pregnant. Even she had lived there for some time.

How did they expect her to stay away?

Shelby used to drive past the home a lot when Rachel was younger, praying to catch a glimpse of the girl, but she never did. Until one day in early 2009 when she walked into the auditorium of a Western Ohio High School to scope out the competition of a local Sectionals competition only to have her life changed forever…

She parks in front of the Berry's home and looks up. All of the lights are on inside of the house and Shelby feels a pang of guilt, imagining Hiram and LeRoy in there frantically searching for their daughter.

Why hadn't she said anything sooner? She has been building herself up to call Hiram and LeRoy for the last two days, but every time she got close, she would tell herself that she would do it tomorrow.

She expected herself to have time. She hadn't expected Rachel and Quinn to do something like this. Now that she thinks about that, she realizes how foolish she had been.

When Shelby finally builds up the courage to knock, LeRoy answers the door almost immediately.

Shelby hasn't seen the man in well over a year, but the first thing she notices is that he looks older. It is not a bad thing, the more mature look suites LeRoy, who has always been an old soul. It is the frantic look inside of his eyes that is unbecoming.

When he realizes that it is Shelby standing on his front porch, he freezes.

Shelby recognizes that it must be a shock to see her here. He certainly hadn't been expecting her, yet there is still a gentleness inside of his eyes.

It reminds Shelby of the first pre-natal appointment that Hiram and LeRoy had ever attended with her. She had only been a month or two away from giving birth at that point, and can remember the OB pointing at the ultrasound to show them Rachel's tiny feet, her fingers, her chin, her heartbeat…

She remembers how ecstatic the Berry men were to finally have the baby they have been waiting so long for. She remembers how they couldn't pull their eyes away from the ultrasound screen that day. Shelby recognizes that that probably makes it hurt even worse that they had looked away long enough for Rachel to do something like this.

"I heard the news," Shelby tells the man. "I think we need to talk."

* * *

They get a cheap motel room a few miles outside of Des Moines just as the sun is starting to set.

It is a sketchy, trucker motel off the side of the highway, but it is the only thing that they could get. The girls had been denied a room at the Holiday Inn down the street because while Quinn was eighteen, Rachel wasn't yet, and the hotel chain had a policy against that.

They were afraid of being denied here too, but when Quinn had asked for the room, the older man behind the front desk only asked if she wanted the room overnight about the hour. He didn't care if the girls were eighteen or eight. He gave them the room without question.

Their room is upstairs on the second floor. Inside, there is a moldy smell and a red carpet that looks like it hasn't been changed out since the 1950's. They only get three channels on the television, four if you count the one that comes in with picture but no sound. There is only one bed. It's a queen size, but the girls couldn't be paid to sleep underneath those covers…

Quinn tosses her backpack onto the ground and takes a seat at the edge of the mattress. It's more comfortable than she thought it would be.

She cuts a glance towards the other end of the room where Rachel is sitting in one of the armchairs, meticulously picking toiletries and a change of clothes out of her backpack. She spends the entire time pretending not to notice that Quinn is staring at her. Quinn _never_ seems to notice that Rachel always notices her staring, but she does.

The two of them make eye contact eventually, but it only lasts a second before Rachel averts her eyes.

Quinn doesn't, though. She keeps staring; watching as the tiny girl slowly starts to peel off her shoes. She looks exhausted, even though Quinn recognizes that it is unlikely that either one of them will get much sleep tonight.

"You okay?" Quinn finally asks.

"Yeah," Rachel nods. "Just tired."

Quinn nods. She can tell that Rachel is still thinking about her dads, still thinking about her broken cellphone on the shoulder of a highway, hundred of miles behind them, still thinking whether or not this trip had been such a good idea…

"We only have about four hours left on the road," Quinn shrugs, desperate for something positive to say. "We should probably get some sleep. We need to leave early tomorrow."

Rachel nods in agreement.

"I'm gonna take a shower first," she announces, standing up from the armchair before making her way towards the bathroom.

Quinn hears the sound of running water moments later. She leans back against the mattress, trying very hard not to picture Rachel inside of that shower just on the other side of that wall.

She shakes her head from that thought, fearing it a violation of Rachel's privacy. Trying to distract herself, she grabs the remote control and starts to flip through the television's three channels.

Her options are between the news, Telemundo, and a staticky version of _My Cousin Vinny_ which cuts out for long seconds every couple of minutes. She settles for that anyway.

The movie is playing for a long time before Rachel emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in nothing but a towel, her we hair clinging to her shoulders. Quinn has to actively pretend not to stare, but she still feels her jaw drop in awe.

"I left my hairbrush," the brunette murmurs. She sounds embarrassed to have been caught like this as she patters quickly towards her backpack in the far corner of the room.

Quinn nods absently, but she seems to have lost her voice. She follows the contours of Rachel's body as she digs through her backpack for her hairbrush, and for a second, she even manages to forget that she is currently in some run-down, crappy motel room in the middle-of-nowhere Iowa preparing to confront Rachel's birth father who may or may not be a dangerous criminal… Instead, it is only her and Rachel and the rest of the world be damned.

That feels good enough for her.

Rachel disappears inside of the bathroom again and emerges a few minutes later fully dressed, with her hair coiled into a high bun on top of her head. She leans up against the open bathroom door and stares at Quinn.

"Hey Quinn?" she calls to the blonde.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for coming on this trip with me," Rachel tells her, smiling softly.

The blonde returns the smile. She had been afraid that Rachel was starting to regret coming on this trip at all, but even if she was, she wasn't regret coming with Quinn, and that is something that the blonde is more than willing to accept.

"It's not a big deal," Quinn forces herself to play it off.

"It's a huge deal," Rachel insists. "I never would have been able to do this alone. I… I know that I've been a little bit difficult today."

"You're going through stuff," Quinn cuts Rachel off, refusing to allow a girl as perfect as her continue to berate herself.

"So have you," Rachel points out.

Quinn nods and looks up at Rachel. The brunette is smiling at her, and it is a genuine smile, which Quinn has noticed has been coming less and less frequently from Rachel.

Quinn tries to take it all in, but Rachel must notice her staring because she flushes and looks down at her feet.

"Well, if you were being difficult today, then I have been a downright pain the ass," Quinn tells Rachel, trying to ease the tension that she always seems to place between the two of them.

"No, you haven't been," Rachel reassures her. "You've been a really good friend, Quinn."

Quinn swallows. She knows that this is supposed to be a compliment, but she can't help but frown. She had heard the exact same sentiment from Shelby yesterday and still, she hardly feels like she has been a good friend. In fact, she has been thinking quite the opposite lately.

Quinn forces herself to look up when she feels Rachel staring at her.

The brunette looks like a model in an old painting with her long, wet hair draped over her shoulders and those big doe eyes wide with all of the possibilities of the world…

The two girls stare at each other for a long time. The longer they maintain this gaze, the more Quinn feels her heart creeping inside of her throat. It is the exact same energy that she had felt while leaving Rachel's house yesterday. It is the exact same energy that had led her to propose an idea as stupid as this one; blind love, or something like that.

Quinn knows that if she doesn't swim back to the surface soon, she will drown so she forces herself to pull out of her own head.

"I'm going in the shower," she forces herself to say. Her voice has gone tight again.

Quinn doesn't wait for Rachel to respond. Instead, she scrambles inside the bathroom and slams the door shut behind her.

She presses her back against the wall and closes her eyes, trying to remember how to breathe again. She has never heard of a girl taking a cold shower in an effort to get the blood to ascend back to her brain, but she figures that it might be worth a try. The guys in Celibacy Club used to talk about doing stuff like that all the time. It had to work for her too, right?

Meanwhile, just outside of the bathroom, Rachel slumps onto the corner of the mattress, embracing the confusion of her last interaction with Quinn.

She has absolutely no idea what just happened, and wonders if Quinn plans on hiding out in the bathroom forever… Judging by how quickly she had run in there, it seems likely.

The brunette starts to run her hairbrush absently through her wet hair. Only then does she notice that the hairs on her arms are sticking up.

She stares at them for a moment. The thrill of her desire is fantastic. She has never felt this way about anybody before; not Finn, not Jesse, not Puck, nobody. She knows that had it been anyone of them who had asked her if she wanted to come on this road trip, she would have called them crazy.

But Quinn… somehow, Quinn was different.

It is a strange feeling where Rachel isn't sure if she wants to pounce on top of Quinn or if she wants to cry every time she sees her

She is so confused and so afraid of pushing the one friend that she seems to have in this world away. Her usual portrait of self-control has completely shattered in recent weeks. She has no idea what to do anymore.

By the time Rachel hears the shower turn off, she is already dressed and ready for bed. She is sitting upright on the bed, propped up against the lumpy pillows, watching Marisa Tomei scream to Joe Pesci about her biological clock on TV.

"I didn't take you for a big _My Cousin Vinny_ fan," Quinn comments from the bathroom door as she towels off her wet hair.

"It's good research," Rachel shrugs, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"Research?"

"For New York," Rachel insists, like that should be obvious.

The blonde just shrugs before traipsing around the room to get ready for the night. She had run into the bathroom so fast that she had forgotten most of her toiletries.

The night ticks by slowly and quickly, the exhaustion starts to seep in for both of them.

The girls hadn't done much more than sit in a car all day, but their emotions had drained them down.

"You can go to sleep if you want," Quinn offers as she watches Rachel try and fail to stifle a steep yawn. "You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

"Don't be an idiot," Rachel rolls her eyes at Quinn's offer. It makes the blonde falter. She has been trying desperately not to think about her and Rachel actively sharing a bed for the night, but Rachel being the one to suggest it makes Quinn's knees go weak.

"O-okay…" Quinn stutters before climbing in. She props herself up against the headboard, keeping herself as far away from the brunette as she can get for fear of what she might do otherwise.

"Goodnight, Quinn," she hears Rachel say after the lamp is flicked off and the two of them are shrouded in darkness.

"Goodnight, Rachel," Quinn reciprocates.

The two girls lay there for a long time. Despite both being exhausted, neither one of them are sleeping.

Quinn is flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She can tell by the brunette's breathing pattern that she is doing the same.

"Quinn?" Rachel finally whispers through the darkness when she can no longer tolerate the silence. "You awake?"

"Yeah…" Quinn mutters.

"What are you thinking about?" Rachel asks. Quinn can feel her shift inside of the bed. She turns onto her side and props herself up on her elbow. She is staring at Quinn through the darkness. Quinn can feel her eyes on her.

"Whether or not my mom will remember to feed my fish," Quinn lies. "What are you thinking about?"

"That I'm glad you threw my phone out the window," Rachel tells her.

Quinn raises an eyebrow at the girl, finally turning to face her, too. "You almost killed me for that earlier."

"I was angry then," Rachel admits. "But it was the right thing to do."

Quinn watches Rachel's eyes fall.

"You okay?" the blonde asks. Rachel only shrugs.

"I'm feeling a little homesick," Rachel admits. Quinn notices that her words are sticky around the edges like she is trying not to cry.

And then she does start to cry. The flood gates open and the brunette is sputtering on the bed, creating a fjord between them.

"We'll be home soon Rachel," Quinn swallows. It is the most pathetic thing she probably could have said, but she can't think of anything else.

It doesn't matter. Rachel doesn't seem to even hear her. She is still crying.

Quinn sits up and forces the crying girl into her arms. Much to her surprise, instead of pushing her away, Rachel only leans in closer. She clutches onto Quinn's shirt and soaks her tears into the fabric.

Rachel stays there for a long time, pulling away only when she is ready.

Her red-rimmed eyes are wide and wet, but hooded, and somehow, Quinn knows what is going to happen before it even does.

It still manages to surprise her when Rachel pounces on top of her and presses her lips into Quinn's mouth so hard that it would have hurt Quinn had she not been waiting for this exact moment for so long.

Rachel bites onto Quinn's lower lip and pulls it hard in between her teeth. Her eyes are closed, but a quick peak tells Quinn that they are not closed so much out of passion as they are because Rachel is afraid to see what Quinn's reaction might be.

Quinn doesn't want to give Rachel the wrong impression. She finds it quite pathetic on her part that after weeks of crushing on the girl, it ended up being Rachel who made the first move.

She forces herself not to think about that. Instead, she decides to make the best out of a good situation. She leans into Rachel, gasping into her mouth as though to tell her that she has been waiting for this moment just as long as Rachel has.

Renewed by Quinn's reciprocity, Rachel pushes the blonde down against the mattress and crawls on top. Her hips are pushed flush against Quinn's, digging in. Heat radiates between them. Rachel's fingernails are pressed so deep into the skin of Quinn's waist that the blonde is afraid she is going to break the skin.

Their lips ghost over each other's. Rachel's chest is heaving, struggling to find air through the ferocity of her motions. Her body weight is limp on top of Quinn's chest. The two of them are pressed together, adhered by the sweat that has broken out across their skin. Quinn can feel Rachel's heart pounding against hers.

Then, Rachel pulls away from Quinn to start to tug her shirt over her head and when she does, Quinn notices that her cheeks are still wet from earlier and something inside of the blonde snaps back to attention.

"Rachel, wait…" Quinn gasps.

"What?" Rachel asks, her arms falling back down to her side.

"Are… are you okay?" the blonde risks asking. She shifts out from underneath Rachel to sit up and for a second, neither of them moves except to breathe.

"I'm fine." The truth hiding inside of Rachel's insistence is obvious. Rachel might really care about Quinn, but this isn't about feeling as much as it is about _not_ feeling and Quinn realizes that Rachel is not fine. She is beautiful and perfect and astounding, but one thing she certainly is not is _fine._

Before Quinn can say anything, Rachel is back on top of her. She doesn't want to talk. All she wants to do is kiss Quinn full on the lips, to feel the blonde all around her, to have her take away this confusing emptiness that has ben lingering inside of her for weeks.

For a moment, the blonde had fallen for it because Rachel touches her as if she were actually here while everybody else has been treating her like a ghost for more than a year. Quinn could cry right now, that's how lonely she has been feeling in recent months, but then, it would be the both of them crying and that would just be obscene.

Something is wrong. This isn't Rachel. The brunette is aggressive, and she is not talking, and she is _still_ crying, and Quinn knows that she has to stop this before it can get out of hand.

"Rachel, stop," Quinn gasps again as Rachel's lips attach to the blonde's neck and sink into her pulse point.

"Stop!" Quinn demands, more forcefully this time. She pushes Rachel off of her, forcing the brunette to fall back.

She looks down at Quinn with a confused expression. Quinn hates the pain that she finds in Rachel's face. Mostly, she hates that she knows that she has to push Rachel away right now. She is afraid that it will ruin everything between them. Of course, not pushing her away would ruin everything even more.

Quinn wants to know every single part of Rachel, but she is willing to take her time figuring it out. She doesn't want to be a page in Rachel's book that takes part in some dingy motel room one night when they are both at their worst, she wants to be an entire chapter, the entire novel…

"Did I do something wrong?" Rachel asks. Her voice is quiet, frightened even.

"Yes," Quinn responds before she realizes how wrong that sounds. "I mean, no. You're… you're incredible Rachel, and that was amazing, it's just… there's something wrong. This isn't you."

"What do you mean it isn't me?" Rachel asks. She sounds offended, but Quinn knows that is only a front.

"I mean are we even going to talk?"

"We've been in a car together all day," Rachel rolls her eyes. "We've talked plenty."

"But we need to talk about _this_ , Rachel," Quinn tells the girl gently. She pulls herself into a sitting position so that her and Rachel are eye-to-eye. Without even thinking, she lifts her thumb to wipe a tear off of the brunette's cheek.

The moisture sinks into the pad of her thumb. Rachel pulls away, embarrassed.

"You know, there's usually not this much talking in stuff like this," Rachel tells her. Her voice has lost all it's passion. Instead, it has gone stiff.

"Stuff like this?" Quinn asks.

"Making out," Rachel clarifies. Quinn swallows. She stares at Rachel and scrambles to come up with something that will make this better.

She never wanted it to be like this.

"Talk to me, Rachel," Quinn begs. She wants Rachel to know that she is not pushing her away, she is trying to reel her in to stay. She needs to make this better. She needs Rachel to understand that she doesn't have to spend the rest of her life wandering in circles just to find somebody who will listen to her speak anymore.

"Can we just pretend that this didn't happen?" Rachel asks. It's not what Quinn wants her to say at all. "I apologize for reading the wrong signal. It won't happen again."

"Rachel, it's not like that, I-"

"I tired, Quinn, I'm just gonna go to sleep." Rachel cuts Quinn off, rolling off the mattress and grabbing a pillow on the way down.

"Rachel…"

"It's okay," Rachel insists. "I'll just sleep on the floor."

Quinn watches Rachel go, amazed how quickly things can go from feeling so right to feeling so wrong.

She wants to tell Rachel that it's _not_ okay, but she can't seem to find the words as Rachel finds a clearing on the floor and throws her pillow down on the hard rug. She lays down on top of it without even a blanket to cover herself.

With a loud sigh, Quinn leans back and stares up at the ceiling, trying to stop herself from crying at her own stupidity.

She had Rachel, and she blew it. For thirty whole seconds, she had thought that maybe her and Rachel could actually make something work. But that was over now…

The blonde folds her arms behind her head as she continues to stare into the darkness. She stays like this for a long time, not sleeping while Rachel is on the floor, also not sleeping. She stays like this until the glow of the sunrise starts to peer through the blinds.

She stays like this and stares, trying to wish away the morning that will inevitably come, bringing all of its answers and its explanations with it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Hey all, here is the next chapter! As always, thank you to everybody for reading/reviewing/favoriting/sticking around. It means a lot. As some people were asking for, this chapter has a little bit more of Shelby in it. There will be a lot more from her perspective in upcoming chapters as more of her backstory comes to light.**

 **Thanks again everyone. Until next time.**

* * *

 **Chapter 10** **:**

Quinn wakes up late the next morning.

She can tell that it's late because she is woken up by the angle of the sun as it reflects through the cheap blinds and settles directly into her eyes. It is already high in the sky. She wonders how much of the morning she has already wasted.

Groaning, Quinn rolls over on the lumpy mattress and ignores the pain in her lower back as she checks the ancient alarm clock on her bedside table. It is just after ten o'clock. The way her night had started, Quinn didn't think that she would have slept at all. She doesn't remember falling asleep, but realizes that she must have, and that when she finally did, she had been knocked out cold.

Stretching widely, Quinn sits up inside of the bed. She props herself up with her good arm and wipes at her tired eyes with the other. Rachel is already awake. Quinn spots her in the far corner of the room, packing some of her belongings in an organized fashion inside of her backpack.

Her back is turned towards Quinn. The blonde wonders if this is on purpose. She doubts very much that Rachel had forgotten about what happened last night, as much as she might want to. Quinn certainly hadn't forgotten. It hadn't been an ideal start to their… well, whatever they were, but Quinn didn't want to forget the feeling of Rachel's lips against hers. Not ever.

She falls back down against the mattress. She recalls, before last night's fiasco, that the brunette had mentioned that she wanted to leave the hotel and hit the road early. Quinn wonders if the reason she had abandoned that plan is because she is afraid to so much as look at Quinn, let alone talk to her.

"Rachel?" Quinn calls into the quiet room, turning onto her side.

The brunette flinches a little at the sudden sound in the room. When she turns to Quinn, her eyes look frightened for a moment. She is terrified of what Quinn is going to say to her. Is she going to want to talk about last night? Is she going to make fun of her? Is she going to tell her that she is a disgusting cretin that she never wants to see again? Will she leave her here in this desolate Iowa town and head back to Lima, leaving her to find her own way back to Ohio?

"Good, you're up," Rachel coughs, ignoring the obvious. She narrows her eyes, settling to go immediately back to business in the hopes that Quinn will follow her lead. Her voice is much stiffer than usual. In Quinn's mind, that is saying a lot. "You have to check out of the hotel in thirty minutes or else you'll be charged for another day. There's free breakfast in the lobby."

"Nice," Quinn swallows her real response and swings her legs over the edge of the mattress. The pillow that Rachel had thrown off the bed in a fit of embarrassment last night is still in the middle of the floor. It looks slept on. Quinn is confident that the brunette had actually spent her entire night on the floor. If Quinn's back hurts, she wonders what Rachel's feels like right now.

The blonde realizes immediately that Rachel is _not_ going to talk to her about what happened last night. Quinn thinks to press but realizes that now might not be the right time. Her and Rachel have to spend another five hours in the car together, and that isn't even including the ride back. Besides, she recognizes that Rachel is already nervous enough about what they are going to find in Foster to worry her about anything else. With these thoughts in mind, Quinn decides not to press Rachel, at least not now. They can confront their futures together when they get back to Lima. If they aren't grounded by their parents for the rest of their lives, that is.

"Is breakfast any good?" Quinn asks, stretching widely.

"It's disgusting," Rachel scrunches her face and stands up, slinging her backpack over her shoulders. "I'm gonna get another cup of coffee, though. I'll meet you out there."

She scurries to leave the room as quickly as possible. Quinn doesn't pretend that she doesn't do this on purpose.

The blonde wants to call after her. She wants to tell her not to go, to come a little bit closer. They can lay in bed together for the rest of the morning, hell, the rest of the day. They can talk about what happened last night, and more importantly, they can make up for it. The right way this time. Quinn doesn't care if the creepy guy at the front desk charges her credit card another $25 for another night in his crap motel. Her father fits the bill anyway. The only thing that she wants is for Rachel to realize that none of this is her fault, that Quinn doesn't blame her, that she in fact feels the same way, that she may be the nightmare, but Rachel is the dream.

* * *

Shelby wakes up and goes to work the next morning.

She knows that she could, and that she probably _should_ call out. She would hardly be of any use to her students being so distracted, and she could use the extra time to look for Rachel's and Quinn's - or more specifically - Peter's whereabouts. Then again, she realizes that the idle time would drive her crazy, and the school might be a better resource to locating Peter Gabbanelli than she is. She doesn't even know where to start. To be honest, she wouldn't have been surprised if somebody had told her that Peter was dead. Or maybe she just tells herself this to make herself feel better.

Either way, Rachel and Quinn had used the yearbook to find out that Peter existed at all. Perhaps they had gotten the rest of their information from the school too…

In the end, she gets herself ready, feeds Beth, and then drops her off at the babysitter like she does every morning. She sits in the same traffic as she always does. She drinks from the same coffee mug as she always does. She does everything exactly the same as she does any other day, except this isn't other day. It is far from it.

The only thing that she can think about is her conversation last night with Hiram and LeRoy. It had been awkward to say the least.

It had taken them a long time to get over their initial shock of seeing their daughter's mother for the first time in nearly two decades, but they were motivated by the promise of getting an update on Rachel's whereabouts. They pushed past that and let the woman speak.

Understandably, they were upset that Rachel had found out the truth about her birth father. In their heightened state of anxiety, they had initially accused Shelby of spilling the truth, but they quickly realized that they were out of line making these kinds of allegations. Shelby would never tell Rachel about Peter. They realize that there were things about the man that not even she has told them about. She is terrified of him, and she has every reason to be.

Instead, they easily accepted that Rachel and Quinn were more persistent than any of them could have imagined, even for Rachel. The Berry men understand. While they prided themselves on raising a remarkably smart, independent woman, they never considered the fact that that would come back to bite them.

 _"Do you know where he is?"_

The question was inevitable, Shelby should have anticipated that. Hiram and LeRoy had been hanging off the edges of their seats, panicking about what might happen if and when Rachel does find Peter. They want to know where he is because they want to know if there is still time to get to him before the girls can. Unfortunately, Shelby has to admit that she is less resourceful than her daughter and her friend in this sense.

 _"I haven't spoken to Peter since before Rachel was born,"_ she had answered, much to the Berry men's disappointment.

 _"But you have to have some idea!"_

It was LeRoy who had snapped first. He raised off his seat, gripping on the edges of the dining room table so hard that his fingers had turned white. Shelby had to insist three more times that she didn't even have an idea before the Berry's believed her. The closest thing that she could give them to closure was her reasoning that Peter would have to be somewhere within a tangible driving distance seeing how neither Rachel or Quinn were over eighteen and couldn't buy themselves plane tickets. They were a two or three day drive in any direction, but that is all she has to go on.

 _"We should go back to the police,"_ Hiram insisted, nodding enthusiastically at Shelby's revelation. _"I bet they hadn't thought of that. They can start dispatching nearby police stations. They can put Quinn's car and license plate number out. They can find them."_

 _"I thought you said the police weren't helpful?"_ Shelby argued.

 _"They might be if they knew what that man is capable of!"_

Silently, Shelby agreed, but Hiram _had_ tried going to the police again, and they had proved just as helpful the second time as they had the first.

There other options were limited. They had tried calling Finn, although the tall boy had informed the Berry men that him and Rachel have been broken up for nearly two weeks, shocking them. They had no idea how much Rachel has been hiding from them. When they had attempted to get Judy Fabray involved, the blonde woman insisted that this was commonplace for Quinn.

 _"She always comes back,"_ Mrs. Fabray had insisted. _"I wouldn't worry too much."_

At William McKinley, Shelby barely walks into the teacher's lounge before she is assigned to substitute a homeroom computer science class on the other side of the school.

It is a small class, unsurprising giving the fact that while kids these days are adamant to get their hands on the newest technology, they are less enthusiastic about learning how it works. Shelby herself has barely any knowledge on the subject. She takes attendance, plays the morning announcements, and lets the class work quietly on their personal coding projects.

She is almost halfway through the class when she realizes that she recognizes one of the girls in the class. She doesn't remember the girl's name, even though she had just taken attendance, but she does know that she has spotted her hanging around Quinn and Rachel, which is the part she really cares about.

The two girls haven't exactly been prone to letting people in lately. Maybe that meant that this girl knows something. Maybe it doesn't. Either way, Shelby realizes that it is worth a try.

She scans through the short class roster on the computer and pretends that she forgot to save it to give her an excuse to take attendance again. There, she learns the girl's name. Genesis. She knew it was something strange like that.

"Genesis, can I talk to you for a minute?" Shelby calls to the girl after the bell rings. She had been impatiently waiting for the end of class since discerning the girl's identity, waiting to talk to her. She did not want to call attention to herself by doing it in front of the rest of the class.

"Sure," Genesis shrugs indifferently, slinging her bag over her shoulder before approaching the teacher's desk.

"You're friends with Quinn, right?" Shelby asks in a low voice just as the last student walks out of the room. She pretends to ignore it as Genesis raises a curious eyebrow at her.

"We're more like acquaintances."

"I've seen you hang around her in the hallways," Shelby points out. She is starting to get the impression that this girl is going to be a harder source of information than what she initially thought.

"We run around the same crowd, that's it," Genesis insists. "Neither one of us are really the type for friends."

"I didn't realize there was a type," Shelby smirks, trying to loosen the girl up, but when Genesis remains stoic, Shelby feels her face fall all over again.

The woman leans forward, bracing herself against her desk with a sigh as she tucks her chin down and tries to search for another approach. She is starting to realize that the only way to get to this girl is to be direct. That is what she was afraid of.

"Listen, I'm sure by now that you heard that Rachel Berry was reported missing by her fathers, and that Quinn is probably with her."

"You think I have something to do with that?" Genesis asks. Shelby watches her defenses go up immediately. She sure as hell is not about to start admitting things.

"I just wanted to know if you know where they might be headed."

Genesis' face hardens in a way that Shelby doesn't like.

"No idea," she says with a stiff tone that tells Shelby that that is not entirely true.

"Genesis, this is important," Shelby all but begs, but before she can convince the girl to say anymore, the door to the classroom bursts open and Will Schuester comes flying in, looking breathless.

"Shelby, Principal Figgins wants to see you, I think it's something about Rachel and Quinn." The man speaks before he even realizes that Shelby is not alone in the room. When he notices Genesis, his eyes dart between the girl and Shelby and he swallows.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were in here with somebody."

"It's okay, Will," Shelby waves him off, letting him know that the secret is already out of the bag. "What does Principal Figgins want? Did they find them?"

"No," Will shakes his head and Shelby has to fight to hold in her disappointment. "I think he just wants to ask you some questions about your rehearsals with Rachel. Apparently, you were the last person to see her on Friday after school."

Shelby sighs, tight-lipped. The last thing that she wants to do is divulge details to Principal Figgins of all people about her complicated relationship with one of his students.

"Tell him I'll be right there," Shelby tells Will, seeing no other way out of it. Luckily, the man does not linger. He backs out of the classroom, leaving Shelby and Genesis alone again. When Shelby turns back to the younger girl, she is looking up at the woman curiously.

"Your name is Shelby Corcoran?" she asks after a long moment of consideration.

"That's me," Shelby sighs. She's not sure that she wants to be Shelby Corcoran any more. It's starting to feel like the worst role she has ever played in her life. And she's played a lot of bad roles.

"Last week, Quinn paid me to find some information out on some guy," Genesis finally breathes after a long moment of trying to decide whether or not she wants to say anything at all. "I'm good with computers, so I knew I could find him no problem. His name was Peter something. He had a weird last name. Anyway, Quinn told me that the guy was Rachel Berry's dad. The first thing I found was a restraining order. It was filed by a woman named Shelby Corcoran. Was that you?"

"It was," Shelby nods. She does not hesitate, figuring that it would be in her best interest _not_ to be caught lying while asking Genesis for the truth.

"You're Rachel's mom?" the girl asks, putting the pieces together impressively quickly.

Shelby's lips curl in as she forces a deep breath. She doesn't want to cry in front of a high school student she barely knows, but for the first time in her entire life, a complete stranger has associated her with her daughter, and she has been craving that association for so long that for a split second, she almost forgets herself and loses it entirely.

"I am," she finally manages, the words shaking on the way out. "That's why I need to know, Genesis. Do you have any idea where her and Quinn may have gone?"

"I don't," Genesis answers, and Shelby can tell that she is telling the truth. "But I'm willing to bet that it has something to do with that guy that they were looking for."

"Me too," Shelby nods her head in agreement. "Did you find out where he lives?"

"Look, I'm not a snitch, okay?' Genesis tells Shelby, crossing her arms tight over her chest, insistent. "If Rachel and Quinn wanted to be found, they would have told you where they were going."

"Genesis…"

"I don't snitch," Genesis repeats, but her voice is softer like there is a _but_ hiding somewhere inside of her statement. "But if you happened to tell me that you were interested in finding out some information about Peter Whats-His-Name too, then I just so happen to provide a service that could help you. In that case, it's not snitching. It's just business."

"A service?" Shelby asks, raising an eyebrow. She's not sure that she likes where this is going.

"$100," Genesis nods.

"Seriously?" The woman's eyebrows raise, disappearing inside of her hairline.

"You want an address, I'll get you an address," Genesis nods at her confidently. "It will cost you though."

Shelby takes a breath so deep that her entire body moves. She can't believe that she is even considering this, but what other choice does she have? The police won't be helpful until it's too late, and nobody else seems to have the resources to find this man.

"Meet me in the faculty parking lot in an hour," Shelby concedes after a moment's hesitation. "God, I can't believe I'm doing this."

She looks down at the teenager, who is smirking at her like she had just won the lottery.

"And I can't believe that Rachel Berry's daddy issues are making me rich."

* * *

An hour later, Shelby leaves Principal Figgins' office and heads towards the faculty parking lot.

As she had anticipated, Principal Figgins wanted to play detective. He asked Shelby questions about Rachel and Quinn and her relationship with them and she had spent the entire time biting her tongue and being vague. She hasn't worked here long, but she is familiar with the incompetence of the man. If she ever wanted to find the girls, she would not involve the school at all.

Once outside, Shelby slips Genesis a hundred-dollar bill in exchange for a wrinkled post-it with an address written on it in sloppy handwriting. It is the most expensive post-it she has ever seen in her life. She hopes it's worth it.

Shelby calls out of work for the rest of the day, and tomorrow as well. Afterwards, she calls Beth's babysitter, a retiree, although she is still on the young side. She asks if Beth can stay overnight tonight and possibly tomorrow as well, but she can't be sure. She figures if she hits the road now, she could reach Nebraska by the late evening. She doesn't plan on this trip taking any longer than the time it will take to drive there, force Rachel and Quinn into her car, and drive back.

When she calls the Berry men, they tell her that they are confident that they can get to Rachel faster if they fly. Shelby is not sure. The closest airport to Foster is Omaha and that is still a three-hour drive, plus, flights between Lima and Omaha don't exactly leave every hour…

Still, the Berry's book a flight from Toledo to Omaha that will leave at dawn and the two groups agree to keep the other informed. Afterwards, the race is on.

Shelby stops at her apartment, only long enough to pack a couple of necessities. She is back in her Range Rover in five minutes. If she pushes, she knows she will make it there before the Berry men. Hopefully, she will make it there before Rachel and Quinn, too. If she knows Peter as well as she thinks she does, there will not be time to spare.

She pulls onto the highway. The radio is off, leaving her in her silence where she curses herself every couple of seconds for not just coming out and telling Rachel the truth. She thought that she had been protecting the girl by keeping her ignorant. She knew that Rachel would not stop searching, but truth-be-told she was naïve enough to believe that she wouldn't take her search all the way to the man's front door.

She realizes that she underestimated her daughter. She has _been_ underestimating her daughter since the day she met her. When Shelby was Rachel's age, she would have done the same thing. Now she knows that despite their physical distance while Rachel was growing up, their genetic pull was just too strong. Rachel was just like her. Shelby hears herself curse again. She wanted so much more for her daughter.

For some reason, she can't stop thinking about the first role she received after moving back to New York with Beth. She had been hired to play the witch in an off-Broadway production of _Into the Woods_. She realizes that after spending six months playing a mother so overbearing, she had single-handedly led her daughter down the path of destruction, she should have been able to predict the ending of this story a little better.

 _Don't you know what's out there in the world?_

The line turns over inside of Shelby's head over and over and over again, but she realizes that it is not helpful to dwell. Instead, she presses her foot against the gas pedal and she makes her way a little bit faster in the direction of Foster, Nebraska.

* * *

 _Eighteen-year-old Shelby Corcoran steps up to a professional building on the opposite side of Lima from where her and all of her peers live. She had done this on purpose. The entire city seems to know that she is pregnant at this point, but she had sought this privacy in an effort to keep a little bit of her child's dignity intact. Selfishly, she was considering her own dignity as well._

 _She swallows before stepping heavily inside of the building. An elderly man holds the door open for her, but he stares at her judgmentally the entire time he does so, just like everybody seems to do the second they notice her protruding stomach. She had hit her five-month mark only days before. She had been ballooning steadily for weeks. Her second trimester had not been kind to her. She doesn't know how much she can blame on the baby and how much she can blame on a never-ending craving for ice cream and peanut butter, but she chooses to place the majority of it on the growing baby inside of her._

 _She finds the sign that tells her that she can find the office of Hiram G. Berry, family lawyer on the third floor. She takes the stairs, because the elevator is packed, and she can't stand the pitiful stares she thought she would be used to by now._

 _The baby inside of her starts to kick at her ribs before she is even halfway up the stairs, like it knows what she is trying to do. The teenager lets out an emphatic_ oomph _that nobody is around to hear and takes a break at the landing._

 _For such a little thing, her baby certainly is a strong one. Her daughter. She had found that detail out only last week at her latest doctor's appointment. For some reason, she hasn't been able to get it out of her head since._

 _With a lot of effort, Shelby makes it to the third floor. Her daughter is still rolling around inside of her and it is starting to make her nauseous. This is already going to be embarrassing enough, she doesn't have to make it worse by throwing up all over Mr. Berry._

 _"Settle down," she whispers to her stomach, wrapping her arms around the curvature of it before she risks pushing inside of the office._

 _"I have an appointment with Mr. Berry," she tells the secretary behind the desk, a thin man in a well-fitting suit and glasses that Shelby can't tell if he actually needs or not._

 _The man nods at her. He doesn't appear to be too much older than Shelby, maybe in his mid-twenties. Without a word, he stands up and knocks gently on a closed office door just behind his desk._

 _"Mr. Berry will be out with you in just a moment," he relays the information to Shelby before guiding her to a series of waiting chairs just by the front door._

 _It is not just a moment. Hiram Berry takes nearly twenty minutes to come out and invite Shelby into his office. In that time, the baby had stopped performing acrobatics inside of Shelby, but she did have to excuse herself once to throw up in the public restroom down the hall. Luckily, she has since learned to start carrying gum and a water bottle with her everywhere she goes._

 _"Mr. Berry, I'm here because I want to know what my rights are as this child's mother to make sure that her father can have no contact with her."_

 _She hasn't even sat down yet before she is making her intentions known. She has her speech planned. She had written it out last night and rehearsed it in a mirror so late into the evening that she'd had to spend the last couple of hours whispering just to make sure her parents didn't hear her. At this point, they were well aware of her pregnancy, however, they were the types of parents who chose to pretend that it wasn't real. They didn't talk about it. They didn't deserve to know what she was planning on doing once the baby was born._

 _"I'm sorry, Ms. Corcoran, I don't understand…" Hiram Berry is a young man. Shelby wonders how long he has been out of law school. He was the cheapest family lawyer that Shelby could find, which leads her to believe that it hasn't been long._

 _"My baby's father," Shelby repeats, gesturing down to her pregnant stomach. "I am afraid that he will pose a threat to my child, both right now and after she is born. I want to know if there is any way that I can protect her from him."_

 _The man raises a very curious eyebrow at Shelby._

 _"How old are you, Ms. Corcoran?" he finally asks her after a long moment, leaning far forward on his desk on his elbows._

 _"I'll be nineteen in November," she answers, trying to sound older than she is._

 _"And what do you do for a living?"_

 _"I just graduated from William McKinley in June," she informs the man and she hates the pitying look that she isn't even sure he realizes that he is giving her. Her eyes narrow. She doesn't need anymore pity. She needs somebody to help her. "And as soon as I have this baby, I am moving to New York to be on Broadway."_

 _"Do you plan on taking the baby with you?"_

 _"No," Shelby answers stiffly. "I plan on giving her up for adoption."_

 _"Yet you think that the baby's father will still be a threat."_

 _"Can I put her up for adoption without him knowing?" Shelby asks, pulling her bottom lip in between her teeth, nervous for the answer._

 _"He wants to keep the baby?" Hiram Berry asks, trying to get to the bottom of the story._

 _"He doesn't want her to be born at all!" Shelby argues. She doesn't understand what is so difficult to understand. Her child is in danger and she is trying to protect it. How much more does this lawyer need to know? "He's an ambitious man, Mr. Berry. He doesn't like anything getting in the way of his future, and right now, he thinks that me and this baby are getting in his way."_

 _"You think that he is capable of harming you and your child?"_

 _"I think that it is in my best interest not to underestimate him," Shelby nods._

 _The man leans back inside of his chair, thinking very carefully for a moment. "_

 _Are you married to the baby's father, Ms. Corcoran?" he finally asks._

" _No."_

" _In the state of Ohio, an unmarried woman is considered the sole custodial parent."_

" _But he can fight it," Shelby argues. She watches the man raise an eyebrow at her, like he is impressed by the scope of her knowledge. "I looked it up. He could take it to court. The only thing that it would take is a DNA test. I can't place the baby up for adoption if we're in the middle of a legal proceeding. Who knows what will happen by the time it's over."_

 _Mr. Berry takes a deep breath. Shelby watches him remove his glasses very purposefully, wiping his hand over his face._

" _Has your baby's father ever harmed you, Ms. Corcoran?" he finally asks. "Has he ever hurt you or your baby in any way?"_

 _Shelby hesitates, her eyes flickering into her lap. It is an answer in itself, in Hiram Berry's eyes, but she can't say it. She doesn't want to think about it. She doesn't want to consider the day that she told Peter that she was pregnant, the day she told him she was considering keeping the baby, the day she got pregnant in the first place…._

" _His behavior has been erratic as of late." She chooses to answer vaguely._

" _What do you mean by erratic?"_

 _Shelby closes her eyes and tries not to cry in front of this man. There had been a time not so long ago that Shelby thought that she was in love. She found out that she was pregnant, and she was foolish to believe that her and Peter and this baby could be a family. But then she told him, and response wasn't what she had expected at all. When rumors started circling around town, Peter's position in his father's "business" for lack of a better word, was threatened._ Too much attention _, the man had told Peter. Before then, Shelby didn't realize what the man did for a living, or why he had to leave Brooklyn for a place like Lima, Ohio in the first place…_

 _Peter blamed Shelby for the lost opportunity. Worse, he blamed the baby. He had gone so far as to rob a gas station at gunpoint to prove himself to his father, but that only made things worse after he was arrested. The arresting officer had been on his father's payroll, meaning he got nothing worse than probation, but that only put Peter more at odds with his father. It only made him angrier at Shelby and his child. With Peter growing increasingly erratic and the court system inside of the Gabbanelli family's pockets, Shelby knew she couldn't risk it. She had to be sneaky. She had to take matters into her own hands._

* * *

 _Shelby returns to Hiram's office several times over the next several weeks. He proves to be a kind man, sympathetic to her plight. He knows that Shelby doesn't have a lot of money. Everything he does for her, he does pro bono, even though Shelby knows his tiny law office doesn't get much business to begin with._

 _He starts by petitioning for the court to file a restraining order against Peter on behalf of Shelby. His secretary, who Shelby has since learned is named LeRoy, signs off as the witness. A week later, he is calling Shelby to regretfully inform her that the petition has been rejected. Shelby is disappointed, but not surprised. The reason she had started all of this in the first place was because she knew she couldn't trust the courts._

 _He asks her to come into his office as soon as possible to discuss another possible solution. Hiram sets an appointment for after hours. Shelby does not realize how unusual that is until she is sitting inside of the now-familiar office in the dead of night, with nobody but Hiram and LeRoy there with her._

 _"I have a possible solution to your problem," Hiram informs the girl. "But I have to admit to you that it's rather unorthodox."_

 _"What do you mean?" Shelby questions, raising her eyebrow._

 _"My partner and I have been trying to have a baby for about two years now," he explains slowly._

 _"Partner?" Shelby raises an eyebrow. She has been coming to this office regularly for almost a month now and never once did Hiram Berry mention anything about being married. There is not one family photo on his desk, or even a ring on his finger._

 _Before Hiram can answer, Shelby watches LeRoy take a tentative step forward. His hand slips inside of Hiram's and squeezes tight and Shelby feels her face dip with realization._

 _"Oh…" she breathes. Perhaps she was being naïve, but never once had she considered that Hiram and LeRoy might be a couple._

 _Understanding floods into her like somewhere inside of her, a dam had just broke. She realizes exactly what Hiram is suggesting. It isn't that he was having a difficult time having a baby, it is that he_ couldn't _. The state of Ohio was not exactly a breeding ground for gay rights. While the rest of the world was slowly coming to grips with the AIDS epidemic, Ohio was always several beats behind. The people here still believed you could contract the disease by looking a gay man in the eyes. They were terrified, and more often than not, ignorance displays itself in an ugly manner. Shelby might get stares on the street for being the pregnant teenager, but Hiram and LeRoy could not even publicly display their relationship without risking their dignity, their careers, their lives…_

 _"We tried an adoption agency," Hiram goes on to explain after a moment. "They kicked us out without saying a word. We have no legal documentation identifying our union, meaning we have no grounds to adopt or use a surrogacy agency. We looked up a few at-home methods, and even got a couple of women to try them, but nothing worked. This is our last chance."_

 _"What do you suggest?" Shelby asks, and not even she can believe how strong her voice sounds when she does._

 _"I can place my name on the birth certificate," Hiram offers._

 _"Can you get in trouble?"_

 _The man hesitates. "I can be disbarred."_

 _"Mr. Berry, I couldn't…"_

 _"You would have to sign a contract, turning over your parental rights and agreeing not to make contact with the child until your eighteen," Hiram cuts the girl off before she could lose her bravado._

 _"Why?"_

 _"Because if something ever did come up regarding a custody issue, the state of Ohio would side with the mother before they ever sided with an unwed gay man, regardless of my name being on the birth certificate or not."_

 _Shelby takes a deep breath. This seems to be happening very fast._

 _"What about Peter?"_

 _"If my name is on the birth certificate, then Peter will have no legal right to the child."_

 _"But he knows about the baby already," Shelby sputters, searching for holes in this arrangement, mostly because she doesn't know if she wants it to be fool proof. "I can't just_ stop _being pregnant."_

 _"Maybe you can," Hiram lowers his eyes at the girl, who understands what he is saying immediately._

 _"You want me to tell him I lost it?"_

 _"You would have to lay low until the baby is born," Hiram nods. "LeRoy and I have a guest bedroom that you can stay in. Afterwards, we will give you a significant sum of money to help you relocate and establish yourself in New York."_

 _"I'm not selling my baby for money."_

 _"It's not for your baby," Hiram insists. "It's to help you get away from Peter."_

 _Shelby takes a deep breath. She can't believe that she's considering this, but the more she looks for a break in the plan, the more she realizes that there isn't one. She wants to protect her daughter from ever having to know that Peter Gabbanelli didn't want her. This is the way to do it. Finally, she feels her confidence soar._

 _"Okay," she nods to the two men. "I'll do it."_

* * *

Despite their late start, Rachel and Quinn make it to the small town of Foster, Nebraska by the early evening, just as people are starting to trudge out of work.

Their ride together could be described as awkward at best. The girls hardly spoke a word to each other, and in the middle of nowhere, the radio didn't have signal more often than it did, meaning that the majority of the drive was spent in silence.

Following the map she had brought back in Illinois, Quinn takes an unmarked exit off of a one-lane highway, which spits her out on a dirt road that is labelled as Main St. on a handwritten sign. Once the dust that her tires have kicked up settles, she sees the sign up ahead welcoming them to Foster, Nebraska.

"Jesus, what a dive…" Quinn breathes as she continues to pull her car down the quiet street. The blonde isn't bold enough to consider herself a city girl, but compared to this town, Lima might as well be New York.

As her and Rachel ascend further into the town, she notices that there are a lot of people out on the streets. They stop and stare as Quinn's tires crinkle under the gravel road, looking at her and Rachel like they have never seen a BMW before in their lives.

Come to think about it, Quinn wonders if maybe they haven't.

There is only one restaurant in all of Foster, Nebraska, and it just so happens to double as the town bar.

Not quite ready to confront her estranged father yet, despite hours of preparation, Rachel comes up with the excuse that maybe they should eat dinner and give Peter an opportunity to wind down from a day of work before they go knock on his door. Quinn knows the truth behind Rachel's suggestion, but the brunette hardly needs anything rubbed in her face right now, so Quinn simply agrees and follows the girl inside of the building, which looks like something straight out of an old western movie.

Immediately upon entering, the girls' senses are assaulted. It looks and smells exactly what one might expect a small-town bar to look like. Quinn has half a mind to ask the owner for their latest health inspection results but realizes that they probably don't even have one.

It feels like each one of the fifty-one residents of this god forsaken town are inside of this bar right now, which doesn't help to ease either Quinn's or Rachel's nerves. The patrons are packed around the bar, drinking watered-down beer with grimy, forlorn expressions on their faces, trying to decompress from an endless cycle of back-breaking labor.

Cigarette smoke hangs low in the air, choking the girls. They stare as though they are watching a circus but notice that people are staring back at them with the exact same expression.

The moment they are seated, the noise swelters inside of the place. It doesn't take the girls long to realize that everybody is talking about them. They don't belong here, that much is obvious, and the girls know from their years in Lima that for what small towns lack in population, they make up for in gossip.

The restaurant has no vegetarian options. Basically, if it is not a cheeseburger or beer, they don't have it. Quinn is totally fine by this, but it leaves Rachel a little more stranded. In the end, they both order cheeseburgers, for which Quinn eats both while Rachel picks on the double order of fries. By the time they are finished, they are clamoring so hard to get out of the place that they almost forget where the next stop on their adventure is.

"You okay?" Quinn asks Rachel as they slide back into the BMW. They have been straying away from saying anything real to one another all day, but this is the moment that they have both come all this way for, and Quinn could hardly get away with not saying anything if she still wanted to make things work with Rachel.

"I'm fine," Rachel breathes. It comes out as shaky, but not so prohibitively so that Quinn would question whether or not Rachel can handle this.

Before either girl could fall back on their insistences, Quinn pulls the car in drive and continues down the main dirt road. Her map is not so detailed that it gives street names in a dumpy little town like this, but there are only about ten roads that make up this entire town, so she figured she would have to find Schneider St. eventually, which she does, tucked away into the far corner of town.

It terminates at a dead end about a mile off of the main road, but for being such a long street, there is only one building on the entire block, a dilapidated old trailer that has so much junk strewn all over the front lawn that it takes Quinn a couple of minutes to find the wooden sign hammered into the ground with the numbers _310_ spray-painted in orange paint on it.

The two of them stare out the window, taking in the building, which looks seconds away from collapsing in on itself.

Rachel's back is heaving up and down in motions that move her entire body. Quinn has half a mind to ask her if she is okay again, but before the blonde can even get the words out, Rachel rides her adrenaline wave and steps out of the car before she can stop herself.

The brunette storms towards the trailer. There is no driveway or path leading to the front of the house, so she has to weave through the trash dotting the overgrown front lawn to get to the door. Behind her, she hears Quinn rush out of her car to follow, but she doesn't look back because she knows that if she does, she will be lost, and she will just ask the blonde to take her back home to her normal house in her normal town with her normal parents…

She has no idea what she is going to say to Peter when she finally does come face-to-face with him, but if she starts to think about that now, she knows she will lose her cool, so she doesn't. Instead, she keeps walking forward. Even when she hears Quinn get out of the car and run to catch up with her, she doesn't think about the blonde. She is glad to have Quinn by her side to face this, but she can hardly tell her that. She had already crossed her maximum threshold for embarrassment with the blonde. Doing so again right now, of all times, would be suicide.

She knocks on the door while she still has some of her nerve left. She hears a dog start to bark on the other side immediately, but otherwise there are no lights on inside of the house, even though it is starting to get dark outside.

When there is no answer, Rachel knocks again. The dog continues to bark with a renewed vigor, but when Rachel listens more carefully, she realizes that there is no other sound coming from inside of the house.

"Maybe he's not home?" Quinn suggests. Rachel looks over her shoulder at her. She is starting to tremble now. Her confidence is dwindling quickly. What if they got the wrong house? What if Genesis had given them an old address and Peter doesn't even live here anymore? What if everything that everyone has been telling her is true and what is on the other side of that door proves to be nothing but danger?

But she hadn't come all this way for nothing. Narrowing her eyes and determined to override all of these negative thoughts plaguing her, Rachel knocks one final time, this time louder than the other two. When there is still no answer, she concludes that Peter could have very well been at the same bar her and Quinn had just been in, drinking away a day of work. The place was packed, and Rachel and Quinn had been actively avoiding eye contact with anyone. Maybe they just missed him. Maybe he would be home soon.

"Should we wait for him?" Rachel suggests.

Quinn shrugs. She knows that they probably shouldn't. She knows that they should probably just get another motel room and wait until the morning, when it is light outside with more people around, reducing the risk. But she also knows that Rachel doesn't need to hear that right now. Besides, if there is a dog in the house, Peter couldn't be gone for too long, right?

"Sure," Quinn agrees, despite everything that she wants to say.

Rachel looks up at the blonde and smiles appreciatively, albeit shyly. She stares at Quinn and realizes despite the embarrassment she'd caused herself, still, nobody has the capacity to heal her like Quinn does. Not even herself.

"Thanks Quinn." Rachel expresses her gratitude softly. Quinn nods her head and for a second, she forgets all of the awkwardness that has been brewing between them all day. Reaching down, she grabs onto Rachel's hand and squeezes hard.

"It's all gonna be okay, Rachel," she assures the girl and she hopes she isn't lying. She looks deep inside of Rachel's dark, brown eyes and feels them pierce her from the inside out. Suddenly, everything that happened between them yesterday seems obsolete. The awkwardness, the embarrassment, Rachel's desire to crawl in a hole and disappear, it's gone.

Silently, Quinn informs the girl that she has nothing to be embarrassed about; that, if anything, it should be Quinn who is embarrassed for going nearly eighteen years of her life without knowing this person who has somehow managed to transform her in the last couple of weeks alone.

The duo retreat to Quinn's car, and Quinn has to actively stop herself from thinking about Rachel, who still hasn't let go of her hand.

They only separate when they get back to Quinn's car and they have no choice. Once inside, they both sit stiff in their seats, breathing heavily as they attempt to figure out what to do next for so long that their breath fogs up the windows and Quinn has to roll them down just to get some fresh air into the car.

"I'm sorry about what happened yesterday," Quinn finally breathes after the silence starts to crawl under her skin. It is the first time that either girl has mentioned what happened at all.

Rachel feels her eyes dart to the side to stare surprised at the blonde for being the one to apologize when she is the one who had ruined everything.

"What do you have to be sorry for?" she asks, the color flushing high inside of her cheeks in a way that Quinn can see even through the increasing darkness.

"I just… I didn't want to push you away," Quinn admits, forcing her eyes away from Rachel and down into her lap. "I've been waiting for something like that to happen with you forever, but you just seemed so sad, and so broken that I… I felt like I was taking advantage of you. I didn't want whatever happens between us next to be defined like that, so I pushed you away. I should have told you all of that last night. I'm sorry for letting you go so long thinking that you did something wrong."

"So… so you're not mad?" Rachel asks hesitantly.

Quinn shakes her head, staring hard at the brunette like she is seeing color for the first time.

"Never," the blonde breathes, and before she knows it, she is reaching up to pull one of Rachel's chestnut locks behind her ear.

She watches Rachel close her eyes into the touch and physically relax, like Quinn had just somehow given her permission to feel something again.

"I don't think that I could have done this without you," Rachel admits, reaching up to hold Quinn's hand tight against her cool cheek.

"Of course you could have," Quinn smiles at her. "You're Rachel Berry."

Rachel's eyes turn down. She pulls out of Quinn's grasp and sinks deep into her seat. Quinn retreats as though burned, afraid that she has said something wrong.

"Sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am at all anymore," she admits quietly. Quinn nods. If she understands anything at all, it is what that feels like.

"Me too," she nods, but then forces Rachel to look at her again. "But for some reason, whenever you're around, I know exactly who I am again."

Rachel blushes at the blonde in a way that makes her look more than beautiful, but she doesn't say anything. Instead, she lets out a breath so deep that it sounds like she has been holding it in since they have left the hotel room. She tilts herself sideways over the center console and rests her head gently against Quinn's shoulder. Her hair tickles underneath Quinn's nose. It smells of cheap motel shampoo, but her familiar scent still lingers underneath it and Quinn inhales for all she is worth.

The two of them fall into a comfortable quiet for the first time since last night. Quinn feels her shoulders relax as she lets the moment take over. Feeling bold, she even goes so far as to reach over and put her casted right hand on Rachel's knee, squeezing it reassuringly, like she is feeling the promise from this unspoken step forward in their relationship.

The night is still young, but neither one of them had gotten a lot of sleep last night. The stars lingering above this desolate town are magnificent, and they provide just enough glow that Rachel is fast asleep within a couple of minutes. Quinn can tell that she has fallen asleep because she hasn't heard the girl breathe so easily in weeks.

The blonde wants to stay awake. She wants to keep vigil for Rachel, protecting her while simultaneously keeping an eye out for Peter, but the comfort of Rachel's body against hers feels like the biggest, warmest blanket Quinn has ever felt in her life and it isn't long until her eyes start to grow heavy too.

She blinks against her exhaustion a couple of times. She can think about nothing other than her desire to break the clock so that the hands of time will never move again. She wants to stay right here with Rachel for the rest of her life.

Quinn takes a deep breath through her nose, counting the seconds that pass by through Rachel's steady breathing next to her. This time when her eyes close, they don't open again, and she is lulled into oblivion with the image of Rachel's eyes looking into her like she has never seen another person in her life m, keeping her safe.

* * *

The blonde's eyes snap open again after only a couple of minutes, or has it been hours? She realizes that she doesn't know, that she had been in a deep sleep, and that she never would have woken up on her own if it wasn't for that sound, which she quickly realizes is the sound of knuckles wrapping against her driver seat window.

Quinn fidgets a little bit inside of her seat, struggling to regain an understanding of her surroundings. She sits up, reluctant to wake up completely from the dream that she was having where Rachel was on top of her, staring down at her with those big, brown doe eyes bearing right into her soul. Then, she hears the sound again and she realizes that she is still in her car and Rachel is still asleep on her shoulder and they are still in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska.

Quinn follows the sound and blinks out the window with bleary eyes. For a second, she thinks that she is still dreaming, because when her vision finally does focus, it is on those exact same eyes that she had just been dreaming about, still looking down at her.

It takes her a couple of seconds to realize that these eyes aren't looking at her in a seductive way. Instead, they look angry, and as the sleep clears out of Quinn's brain, she realizes that they do not belong to Rachel at all, but to the man that had given them to her in the first place. Peter Gabbanelli.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11** **:**

Quinn chokes on the last remnants of sleep at the sight of the man, who she had only ever seen in an ancient yearbook and grainy mugshot photo, standing live and in person right in front of her.

Waking up in a dark, desolate Nebraska field with a stranger staring down at you through your car window would be frightening in any situation, but add in the fact that Quinn is half asleep, and that the only thing she really knows about this man is that he has a mysterious and sordid past, and Quinn realizes very quickly that she has never felt so frightened in her life.

From what Quinn can make out of the man under the heavy moonlight and dense stars, he looks wild. While he still has the same eyes that he had in his pictures from eighteen years ago, the rest of him has grown old and gaunt. He looks nothing like the yearbook photos that Quinn had seen, where he had looked handsome, well-dressed, and clean-cut. He didn't even look like the mugshot, where he was looking less than his best.

He has aged terribly. His hair is long, down to his shoulders and it is grayer now than it is that exact same chestnut brown as Rachel's that she remembers. His face is wrinkled and overgrown with a patchy stubble that sprouts unevenly along his jaw. His face is wrinkled. He is rail thin. He looks like he weighs less than Quinn, and maybe even Rachel, despite being several inches taller than both of them.

For a moment, Quinn puts aside her terror to relish on the reminder that him and Shelby are the same age. The man can't be older than thirty-five or thirty-six, yet standing here in front of Quinn, he looks closer to sixty.

That doesn't make him any less intimidating, hovering over Quinn, though. The blonde jumps back inside of her seat. She feels her shoulder knock into Rachel and hears the girl beside her snap awake with a confused groan that is quickly followed by a gasp of surprise when she sees who it is that is standing over them.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

The man's voice matches his appearance. It is stringy and high-pitched. He talks like he just downed twenty cups of coffee at once. It is a remarkable difference from hearing Shelby or Rachel speak. They are always portraits of control. It is obvious that Rachel got that from Shelby. Looking at Peter, it is starting to become obvious that she got just about everything from Shelby.

Both of the girls stumble deafly over the question. They had a twelve-and-a-half-hour car ride to think about what they would say once they inevitably did confront Peter, but they had come up with nothing. In all fairness, this isn't exactly how they pictured this reunion. Judging by the look on Peter's face, it isn't how he pictured it, either.

"P-please sir, we're sorry to bother you, we're just looking for somebody." Rachel finally manages to find her voice. She stutters a little but sounds remarkable calm despite the severity of the situation blooming in front of her.

"Get out of the car," Peter barks, ignoring Rachel's explanation.

Despite their better judgment, both girls listen. They scramble out of the car. For a moment, the only sounds in the darkened night are the sounds of them scurrying and that damn dog barking again as a result of the commotion.

Dirt kicks up underneath Rachel's shoes as she rushes around the front of the car to stand in solidarity with Quinn. Now that they are standing, Quinn realizes that they are both trembling, so hard that their knees knock against each other's.

"This is private property," he barks after a moment. His voice is a little stronger than it had been before, like he had been expecting something much worse than two teenagers to step out of that car upon his command. "Now, I'll ask you again. Who are you?"

He stares down at Rachel, because he had already gotten her to speak once. He shifts, hovering over the brunette. The moon lightens his elongated, drooping face. Quinn tries to blame it on the shadows of the night, but somehow, he looks even older than before.

"My name is Rachel Berry, and this is my friend Quinn Fabray," Rachel answers, her voice gaining strength with practice. "We're looking for Peter Gabbanelli."

"Are you police?" the man asks tentatively. He takes a step back, away from the girls, like he is ready to run just in case they should say yes.

"N-no," Rachel answers. The stutter is back inside of her voice, although Quinn notices that it seems to be more out of confusion than fear this time. "I'm a senior in high school."

Peter takes pause after that, raising his eyebrows so that he looks just as confused as Rachel and Quinn are. He takes in the girls in front of him, really takes them in for the first time. His eyes fall onto Quinn's shirt. For a moment, the blonde thinks that this man actually has the audacity to be staring at her chest. She is about to rip him a new one when she realizes that he is just staring at the logo emblazoned across it. She is wearing an old _William McKinley High School_ t-shirt. She hadn't even realized it when she had put it on this morning. She had just thrown random clothes into a bag when she packed. Now, it makes a dawn of familiarity pass across the man's eyes. He looks back at Rachel with an expression like he has just seen a ghost.

"What did you say your name was?" he asks Rachel, his voice softening. In the absence of anger, Rachel notices that he speaks with a low drawl. He has been living in the Midwest for too long. Still, a twang of Brooklyn remains in the undertones of his accent.

"Rachel Berry," the girl swallows and the man's entire face changes as he takes in Rachel and, more specifically, her likelihood to somebody he hasn't thought about in years.

"You're Shelby's daughter."

"Um…" Rachel hesitates. That seems like a terribly convenient way of phrasing things. Then again, Peter probably hadn't come home tonight expecting to find his estranged daughter sleeping in a car outside of his home. She passes his words off as shock and forces herself forward. "Yes. Yes, I am."

"You're not one of mine too?" Peter turns towards Quinn, eyeing her up and down, trying to see if she too, bears a stunning likelihood to one of his exes. "Because I've had a lot of blondes in my day, but I don't think you look familiar."

Quinn scoffs at the comment, but she chooses to let it slide, chocking it up as a tasteless joke made by a nervous man.

"No," Quinn replies curtly. "I'm not one of yours. Just a friend of Rachel's."

"Good, because two long lost kids showing up to my front door in one day would be far too coincidental," the man forces a very rigid laugh, but when neither of the girls return it, his face falls again.

"I don't have any money to give you, if that's what you came all this way for," he tells Rachel, suddenly serious. Rachel feels herself turn bright red. She is glad that it is so dark outside so that nobody can see it.

"It's not," she whispers, embarrassed. "I just… I wanted to meet you."

Peter nods once, but his jaw is still tight as his head swivels back and forth between Quinn and Rachel, like he is trying to read them for the truth. Rachel isn't sure that he believes her, and she doesn't know what to make of that.

"I guess you probably want to talk then," he sighs after a moment. "You probably have a thousand questions."

Neither Rachel nor Quinn say anything. Instead, they glance at each other quickly as though trying to read each other's minds. Rachel has spent weeks thinking about what she would say if and when she finally came face-to-face with Peter. Now that she has, she cannot think of a single thing.

"Listen, my house is a mess," Peter continues, seemingly unaware of the girls' uncertainty. "Why don't we take a ride? There's a town a few miles down the highway with actual restaurants unlike this dump."

He smirks at the girls, but they struggle to reciprocate.

"Besides, I think I'm going to need a stiff drink for this."

Quinn and Rachel glance at each other again, speaking silently to one another. Both feel uncomfortable and terribly awkward however, both can agree that they might be better off in a public place than they would be sitting in this back-country trailer.

"Come on, we'll take my truck," Peter waves the girls forward after they agree with a nod, guiding them up the gravel driveway towards the old Chevy that is sitting there.

The truck looks old and beat down. The girls can't help but wonder if it will even start. Quinn takes one last glance over her shoulder towards her BMW, silently wondering if they would be better off following, but by the time the thought crosses her mind, Rachel is already climbing into the truck.

"I didn't mean to sound so unwelcoming before," Peter says absently as the girls make themselves comfortable, Rachel in the middle and Quinn pressed against the passenger side. "Unfortunately, the nearest police station to us is a forty five minute drive. People in this town have a tendency to defend themselves, and I've been robbed before."

Quinn glances out the window. Everything that Peter owns seems to be scattered across the front lawn. Silently, the blonde thinks to herself _I can't imagine why,_ but she thinks better than to say it out loud.

"I know a good place that still serves some bar food at this time of night," Peter speaks through the silence. He sounds like he is forcing himself to say every word. "Just hold tight. I have to make a quick stop first."

* * *

They drive for about twenty minutes.

Quinn spends the entire time sitting idly in the passenger seat, her jaw buried in her hand as she pays careful attention to every turn that Peter makes to avoid concentrating on the increasingly awkward silence. Not even the radio works in this godforsaken town. The quiet is seeping through all of them.

"I have to admit, I was more than a little surprised to see you here."

Peter is the one to snap first. The girls have had plenty experiences with awkward silences. They had spent half of their drive here committed to one. Peter however, seems fidgety, uncomfortable, nervous in its presence.

"I realize it might have done me well to call first…" Rachel admits hesitantly. She can't read the tone in Peter's voice. She is having a hard time telling whether it is an offhand comment or an accusation.

"It's not that," the man insists. "It's just that… well, Shelby told me that she had lost the baby while she was pregnant with you. I didn't think that you even existed."

Rachel tries not to let Peter's words offend her, only it is not Peter who Rachel is suddenly mad at, it is Shelby.

"Why would Shelby make up a lie like that?" Rachel breathes, trying and failing not to sound hurt. Had Shelby been planning to not carry her to term? Or did she just wish that that were the case?

"She always did have a tendency to tell tall-tales, your mother," Peter shrugs. " _Theatrics,_ she used to call them. She was very proud of that."

Rachel swallows. She is starting to realize that not even Peter seems to have the answers that Rachel had come all this way for. Was Rachel ever going to find out the truth? It didn't seem that way. Peter is right, Shelby loved to make up stories. She wonders if anybody on the face of this planet has ever seen the real Shelby Corcoran. She is starting to doubt it very much.

"Lies, you mean," the girl mumbles, trying and failing to hide her disappointment.

"You told me earlier that your last name is Berry?" Peter asks the girl after a moment, his eyes darting to check on her composure. If he senses that she is starting to lose it, he doesn't mention it.

"Yes," Rachel swallows again as Peter nods his head slowly, like he had just figured out the final piece to an impossible riddle. Rachel wishes that he would impart some of that wisdom onto her. "Why?"

"I guess that's why she told me that you were dead," he breathes to himself. Rachel cringes. That seems like a rather uncouth way of putting Peter's circumstance, and hers. "She hired a lawyer, Hiram Berry. That's your dad, isn't it?"

"Yes," Rachel nods again, recognizing that Peter seems to be the only one asking questions here even though she was supposed to be the one getting answers from him.

"She gave you to him…" he breathes. There is something strange inside of his tone, but Rachel can't read it. "And Shelby never mentioned me? Not once?"

"N-no sir," Rachel stutters apologetically.

Peter pauses. Rachel watches his eyes twitch to her, staring hard. She wishes that she could tell what he is thinking. She wonders if he can tell how nervous she is. He certainly doesn't look nervous. In fact, he is acting like something like this happens every day, which gets Rachel thinking…

"Do you have any other kids?" she asks suddenly, before she can think that it might be rude to do so. She looks up at him hesitantly, afraid that she may have said the wrong thing, but the more she thinks about it, the more she thinks that it's her right to know whether or not she has a half brother or sister out there somewhere.

"Not that I know of," he laughs. "I didn't even know I had one before today. Does Shelby have any other kids?"

Rachel pulls her lip between her teeth. This man certainly has a lot of questions about Shelby. Rachel isn't entirely sure what to make of that. The brunette looks to her right quickly towards Quinn, who has been surprisingly silent throughout the duration of this ride. The blonde is paying close attention to the scenery outside of the window.

"No," Rachel lies, turning back to Peter because for some reason, it feels like the right thing to say.

"I wonder why she was so determined for us not to know each other then," Peter shrugs. Rachel shakes her head. She thought that Peter would be the one who was able to tell her that. Something doesn't seem to be adding up. Peter was supposed to be the one to give her more answers, not more questions. What would she have come all this way for otherwise?

"Why would she do that?" Rachel whispers, thinking out loud. Her voice sounds desperate.

"I have no idea," Peter tells the girl, and Rachel is not so sure that she believes him.

Rachel scrambles through the awkward silence that follows. So far, it is only Peter who has been asking her questions when it was supposed to be the other way around. Determined to get at least one in, Rachel straightens herself up inside of her chair.

"Why did you come all the way out here to live in a place like this anyway?" she asks.

The man seems unsettled by her question, although Rachel thought it was an obvious starting point. He stumbles over his answer for a couple of minutes. Luckily, or unluckily, the way that Rachel sees it, he is spared from having to answer as he pulls off the road onto another street with a sign posting out front that has the numbers _1567_ spray painted on it. The road is so long that it takes Rachel a moment to realize that it is not a road at all, but a driveway.

"We're here," Peter says simply, not even close to an answer to Rachel's question. The girl figures she will revisit it when they get to the restaurant and settles into her seat as Peter turns his truck off.

Rachel feels the nerves start to bubble inside of her stomach again. She has no idea whose house this belongs to, or what kind of errand Peter has to be running at ten o'clock at night, which is the time according to the digital clock inside of his dingy old truck…

"Wait here for a minute, girls," he instructs, shimmying out of his truck before slamming the door behind him, shutting the girls inside.

He steps up towards the house, knocking so hard on the old wooden door that the girls can hear it all the way from the truck, even with the door shut.

"What do you think that's all about?" Quinn asks, watching Peter carefully out the windshield with Rachel. The blonde is whispering, Rachel notices, even though the truck's windows are rolled up and Peter is standing several feet away. She is just as nervous as Rachel is. For a moment, that makes Rachel feel better about how she feels, but then she realizes that it should only make her feel worse, and it does.

Rachel shrugs with a shiver that only half has to do with the sudden cold. Without the heat of Peter's truck to warm her up, and the clouds rapidly closing in overhead, blocking the light of the stars and the moon, the dismal blackness of this desolate Nebraska town is really starting to get to her head.

"I don't know," Rachel admits even though she hates doing so. This is hardly going the way she had planned, although now that she is really thinking about it, she isn't entirely sure what she thought she would find here.

"Does he seem a little… I don't know… _off_ to you?" Quinn asks. She phrases it as politely as she can think to. The truth is that Peter seems downright crazy to her. Maybe it is his history that is making Quinn a little bit bias, but she can't help to make this first impression of him. The only thing keeping her from saying so is the fact that she knows just how desperately Rachel wants this to work. Quinn would never even consider giving anybody else the courtesy of tact. Quinn wonders if that is a good thing in this situation, or a bad one.

"You weren't even paying attention to him," Rachel sighs, but she doesn't sound convinced by even her own excuse. "You were staring out the window the entire time."

"I was trying to give you as much privacy as possible in this tiny ass truck," Quinn points out. "That doesn't mean I wasn't listening."

"I bet this place has made him a little loopy," Rachel answers vaguely. She is still staring out the windshield at Peter, who continues to stand on the top step of the porch, waiting for an answer at the door. "Living out here in the middle of nowhere would get to anybody's head."

Quinn doesn't say anything. Rachel had made an excuse for Peter, but she hadn't exactly disagreed with Quinn when the blonde said she thought he was a little off, either.

Silently, Quinn follows Rachel's gaze out the windshield just as the front door that Peter is standing in front of opens, flooding the porch with light. The girls get a good look at the house for the first time. It has white siding, although in the darkness, Quinn had mistaken it for gray given all the dirt and grime all over it. The house is run down, just like Peter's trailer had been. The amount of what the girls would refer to as junk is also about the same, although unlike at Peter's house, it is not strewn all across the front yard but stacked neatly in piles so bulky that it presses against the filthy porch screens.

The woman who answers the door is a big, burley woman. The girls can tell that she is taller than Peter even aside from the fact that she is standing on a ledge above him. Her short hair is wildly curly and dark gray on top of her head. She is wearing a nightgown that looks grimy despite being faded with wash. She reminds Quinn of a cartoon character. The blonde would laugh if the woman didn't have a stature that tells Quinn that she could snap her in half if prompted, and an expression on her face that tells her she wouldn't hesitate to do so.

Even through the shadows of the night, the girls can tell that the woman doesn't look happy to see Peter at her front door. They figure that if somebody knocked on their door at ten o'clock at night, they would be looking rather irritated too.

The woman doesn't appear to say anything to Peter. Instead, he bursts into an immediate fit of very animated talking. The girls can't hear what he's saying, but his lips are moving at a mile a minute and his hands are waving in the air as though to support his claim. The shadows of his frantic motions wave into the car, and whatever he says seems to work, because the woman's face softens slightly, and she steps aside to let Peter into her house. Peter accepts the invitation, and when the door closes behind him, it shrouds Rachel and Quinn in darkness once more.

"What was that about?" Quinn asks, looking uncertainly at Rachel although she knows that the brunette knows just as much as she does.

"No idea," Rachel breathes. "He didn't have very much to say though, did he? Do you really think that he doesn't know anything? Do you think we came all this way for nothing? Shelby told him that she miscarried me. Why would she do something like that? Does all that woman know how to do is lie?"

Rachel spits a mile of questions off at Quinn, although they both know that neither of them have the answers. The brunette sounds angry, but Quinn notices that behind that anger is what Rachel is really trying to hide, confusion, an uncertainty as to whether or not she should trust Peter, as much as she wants to…

Quinn frowns at Rachel. Reaching over, she grabs Rachel's right hand with her good left one and weaves their fingers together. She knows that this is not the right time to concentrate on them, whatever _they_ are right now, but now that both of their feelings were out in the open, she figures a small gesture of affection wouldn't hurt. When Rachel doesn't pull away, she squeezes her hand even harder.

"I'm sure that Shelby had a good reason to do what she did," Quinn tells her. "Don't hang her and your dads out to dry just yet for a guy you've known for thirty minutes."

"But he's my dad…"

"Look at my dad," Quinn shrugs, trying to emphasize that the title hardly holds any merit if the actions do not match it. "Besides, mothers can do crazy things when they think it's best for their children, even if it only hurts them in the end. Look at me. I thought that I would be able to take this thing with Shelby being pregnant and use it to try to get Beth back."

"You what?"

Quinn realizes, far too late, that she should have saved this tidbit of information for another time, or maybe never.

Paling, the blonde turns towards Rachel with horror in her eyes. How had she been so stupid to say something, here of all places, and to phrase it like that?

"I didn't mean it like that," Quinn swallows quickly, watching Rachel process Quinn's revelation, her face starting to register the hurt slowly. "It was stupid, I know that now, but… but I was different back then."

"Back then? It's only been two weeks, Quinn!" Rachel roars, her face falling, betrayed as she rips her hand out from underneath Quinn's. Quinn swallows, but she has no other words to defend herself with. Instead, she offers Rachel a look that is purely apologetic. This is far from the first time that she has unintentionally hurt Rachel, she knows. In fact, it happened quite frequently. The thing is, the closer they got, the more it hurt, not only Rachel, but Quinn too.

The brunette used to be able to ignore things like this easily, brushing it off as Quinn just being Quinn. Now that she thought that there was actually a possibility of a future for the two of them, things like this struck her to the core. They ripped her up from the inside out. It hurt. She stares hard at Quinn and she realizes that you can hate somebody and be crazy about them all at the same time.

Quinn stammers, searching for an explanation that never comes. She struggles to explain her reasoning. How, at the time, she had been drunk with jealousy and self-loathing. How it had nothing to do with Rachel, or the way that Quinn felt about her, and everything to do with this crushing desire to feel whole again…

But nothing ever comes out of the blonde's mouth, and Rachel only looks more hurt because of it.

"I can't believe you, Quinn," Rachel breathes in a low, cool voice after giving Quinn ample time to explain herself, only to come up with nothing.

"Rachel, wait!" Quinn calls after Rachel as the brunette slides over to the driver's side of the truck and thrusts her way out of the door, slamming it shut so hard behind her that the entire truck shakes.

Quinn falls out of her own door, stumbling into the cold night.

"Leave me alone, Quinn!" Rachel calls over her shoulder. She is storming down the long driveway. She looks like she is planning on marching all the way back to Lima in her anger. Quinn wouldn't put it past her. Her back is turned towards Quinn, but it is cold enough at this point that Quinn can see each of her heavy, angry breaths puffing out of her mouth, hanging over her head like smoke. It creates the illusion that Rachel is breathing fire, which, Quinn realizes, she seems angry enough to actually do.

"Rachel, please let me explain!"

"I've already let you explain!" Rachel roars back, turning back over her shoulder and squaring up angrily against Quinn. The blonde stumbles back. She has seen Rachel angry before, but this seems to be taking it to a whole new level. "I've let you explain every stupid thing you have ever done to me on this entire drive, and it never seems to end, Quinn. I'm sick of it. I thought that you were different. I thought that you changed."

"I did change!" Quinn roars back, desperation laced inside of her elevated voice. "Rachel, you have to believe me. I'm not the same girl that you saw on that first week of school or any other year before it. I changed. I've changed for real and it's all because of you."

"You didn't change," Rachel accuses. She isn't yelling anymore, but her voice is seething with disappointment and somehow, this hurts Quinn even more. "You're still the same Quinn Fabray that you've always been. I can't believe how stupid I was for thinking otherwise. I thought you liked me!"

Tears glisten at the bottoms of Rachel's eyes now, despite how desperate she is trying to keep them in. Quinn can see them glistening in the scant moonlight before another cloud moves overhead and she can't see much of Rachel's face anymore at all.

"I do," Quinn insists, more than begging. "Please, Rachel, you have to believe that my feelings for you are real. I do like you. I… I love you, Rachel."

It's not exactly the circumstances in which Quinn pictured admitting this little bit of information to Rachel. In fact, in her wildest fantasies, she'd always envisioned her and Rachel at a small, private table in a fancy restaurant, not in Lima, but in the city like Cincinnati, no, New York. Standing in the dark driveway of a friend of a sketchy man in the freezing cold was hardly ideal, yet here she is.

Her words seem to have the desired effect. Rachel's entire body seems to slacken. Not even she has words to counter this, which is highly unusual for a person as talkative as Rachel Berry.

Quinn wonders what she is going to say. She is getting the impression that even Rachel wonders what she is going to say when they are interrupted by a sudden presence behind them.

"Rachel?"

A deep voice calls over their heads, slicing through their silence. Rachel and Quinn turn back towards the house. That box of light from the open doorway is back. Standing inside of it is Peter. Quinn wonders how much of their argument that he had heard.

"Come inside quick, I want you to meet a friend of mine," he calls to Rachel through the cold. "Your friend can come."

"She can wait here," Rachel grumbles, giving Quinn one last, cold glare that tells the blonde that a profession of love in an emotionally heated situation isn't good enough an apology before she shoulders her way past Quinn and towards the house.

"Shit!" Quinn bellows as soon as the door closes behind Rachel and the brunette and Peter disappear, leaving Quinn alone in the dark. She wants to hit something, but the last thing she needs are broken knuckles in her left hand to match the ones in her right. Instead, she just resumes her pacing, marching up and down the driveway until she doesn't even feel the cold anymore, all the while irritably wondering what else she can possibly do to screw up things with Rachel.

* * *

The moment that Peter closes the door behind her, Rachel feels her anger ebb to nerves.

It is still cold inside of the house, although it is not nearly as cold as it had been outside. The house is filthy. It would seem that whoever lives here could probably have a guest role on one of those reality television shows that the brunette only watches when she is really bored, where people never throw a thing out in their lives.

Piles of old newspapers and magazines are tied together by twine and stacked so high that some of the piles are taller than even Rachel is. In one corner, Rachel spots four or five bowls full of what looks like cat food, but even though it smells like this place could be home to a small zoo, she doesn't see a single animal.

Swallowing, Rachel forgets her anger at Quinn for a moment and instead, finds herself wishing that the blonde had come inside with her.

Peter guides Rachel into what looks like a dining room. The woman who had answered the door for him earlier is already inside, waiting in a chair at the head of the table. She doesn't look any less angry than Rachel had observed earlier when she had opened the door for Peter, and Rachel hesitates so abruptly that the man crashes straight into her back.

"Rachel, this is Darlene Ross." Peter attempts to ignore Rachel's obvious discomfort, and instead steers the girl into a seat at the opposite end of the table from Darlene. Rachel forces herself to nod politely to the woman, but she gets no acknowledgment aside from a strategic tightening of the jaw.

Gulping, Rachel practically falls into her chair.

"N-nice to meet you," she stutters. The woman only continues to stare. Rachel gets the impression that she is trying to X-Ray her.

"This is your girl?" she finally says after a moment, only she isn't talking to Rachel at all, but Peter.

"This is her," Peter nods proudly. He even puts his hand down against Rachel's shoulder and squeezes, and for a second, Rachel forgets her surroundings and gleams at what seems like a completely normal moment exchanged between father and daughter before she reminds herself that this is hardly normal.

"She's a pretty girl," the woman continues. Rachel notices that it was not meant to be a compliment.

"She is, isn't she?"

"That can be a distraction," Darlene clicks her tongue, like she is determined to find a flaw in Rachel and pushes herself up from her chair. With big steps that shake the entire dining room, she approaches Rachel. Rachel can see her tree trunk legs, veiny and swollen, sticking out from underneath her nightgown. She is wearing a pair of pink slippers. The irony could have made Rachel laugh if the woman wasn't staring at her like she was about to devour her.

"Stand up girl," she demands, and Rachel doesn't even consider not complying. She scrambles up to her feet. Before she can even process how strange this entire interaction has been, she is being circled. Darlene is walking around her, eyeing her up and down like a hawk and Rachel can't help but wonder if the woman _is_ planning on devouring her after all.

"It won't be a distraction," Peter insists after several tense seconds in which the only noises in the room are the sound of Darlene's footsteps and her short noises when she sees something that she either approves of or does not. "Rachel can do this."

Rachel's ears perk at the comment. She feels her heart sink straight down into her feet. She realizes, far too late, that Peter hadn't taken her to this dingy old house in the middle of the night just to meet a friend. He had brought her here to broker some kind of business transaction, a transaction, it seems, that is largely dependent on her.

"Um… I'm sorry, what am I doing exactly?" Rachel risks asking, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Both Darlene and Peter ignore her. Rachel knows that they must have heard her. Darlene is standing so close to her that she can smell the cheap body wash on her skin. Rachel considers asking again, but before she can, Darlene speaks once more, and Rachel can't help but to think that it would not be in her best interest to try to talk over the woman.

"If she makes my deliveries, you can't be anywhere near her," she turns to Peter. Her voice is serious. Most notably, it sounds like she is actually putting Peter's offer into consideration. Rachel feels herself tense as she wonders what this might mean for her.

"I won't be anywhere near her," Peter nods reassuringly. "You can send her off with somebody else if you want. You can send her out with a fleet for all I care."

The more they talk, the more that Rachel feels her heart pound. It is obvious that she had just sailed herself into a storm much too big for her little boat. They wanted to use her to conduct their business, and Rachel might be a naïve high school girl from a quiet Ohio town, but she wasn't an idiot. She knew exactly what these people were selling.

Closing her eyes, she wonders desperately how she had gotten herself into this situation. Her own stupidity seems to be the defining factor. More importantly, she wonders how she is going to get _out_ of this situation. Her only hope is for Quinn, who is still standing outside, to realize that something is wrong and come and save her. But they had just been fighting (what was it about, Rachel can't even remember anymore) and what if Quinn was already halfway down the road on her way back to her car to take off? What if she never came back? Worse, what if Darlene found her first? What would she do to her? Hurt her? Kill her? Rachel swallows. This is one answer that she doesn't want.

"Word is getting out, Peter," Darlene clicks her tongue, clearly disappointed as Rachel starts to scramble to find any excuse she can think of to get out of this house. "The cops have been on you for weeks. Nobody is going to buy from me anymore if they think that a sting is going to come jumping around the corner. I'm losing business, and you still owe me for my last two shipments."

"Rachel will make things right, Darlene," Peter shrugs towards the terrified girl standing in front of him, seemingly oblivious to her lack of responsiveness to his plan. "Look at her, nobody will suspect her."

"She doesn't belong here," Darlene practically spits. "She sticks out like a sore thumb."

"That's what makes it so great!" Peter pitches. "How many police officers do you think are in this county? They will be so busy on the regulars that they won't place a second thought on some random kid ambling around. I'll get your money, Darlene. I'll get that, and then some."

"How?" she asks, and Rachel hates how interested she sounds.

"I was told that the girl was dead before she was even born," Peter gestures towards Rachel, smiling despite the comment. If Rachel wasn't so busy being terrified, she probably would have taken offense. "Her mother sold her off to her lawyer. That's kidnapping, Darlene, trafficking. Do you know how much money I can get from both her mother _and_ the man who raised her? They'll be in jail and we'll be sitting on a hoard of cash."

Frightened and confused, Rachel stumbles backwards, trying to sneak away from the two individuals. She had come here looking for answers, and maybe it was her own naivety, but she didn't suspect that these would be the answers she would get. She didn't suspect that her search might put her family into legal trouble. She squeezes her eyes shut, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly stupid. Why didn't she just listen to Shelby when the woman told her to leave this alone? Why didn't she just pester the woman for answers until she finally caved? Why did she have to drive all the way out here, where nobody knew where she was, and nobody would hear her cries for help, and the only person who could possibly save her, she has been pushing away for the last twenty-four hours?

"I… I think I should go…" Rachel breathes. She tries to take another step back, but her feet betray her. They don't move, no matter how hard she concentrates on telling them to.

Before she can get very far, Darlene is on top of her. She places a hand the size of a bear paw down against Rachel's shoulder and squeezes so hard that Rachel is certain it will bruise.

"Oh honey, you're not going anywhere."

The woman is smiling at her, but it is a sinister look.

Using the firm grip that she has on Rachel's shoulder, she pushes the girl back down into her chair. Rachel feels her knees buckle at the pressure and she goes flying into her seat with an emphatic _oomph_. The chair rocks unsteadily under her weight and for a moment, Rachel is afraid that the legs are going to give out, but they never do.

"Leave? Rachel what are you talking about?"

Peter sounds alarmed by Rachel's expression of a desire to stop his plan before it can start. He had clearly been laying everything down on the line by inviting Rachel into this mess. It is clear to Rachel now that never once had he considered that Rachel might not be on board.

He stares at her hard, his eyes wide and frightened about what might happen to him if Rachel should not comply. Rachel would feel bad for him had he not just tried to sell her off to a drug dealer.

The man crouches in front of her. His thin arms are trembling as he reaches out and grabs onto Rachel's upper arms with a surprisingly firm grip. The strength of such a skinny man surprises Rachel.

"Listen, you left Ohio to come and find me, clearly you were unhappy," Peter argues. Rachel realizes that he had a point. No sane person would run away from home and drive twelve hours just to see a man you have never met, even if that man was your father. But while Rachel may have been angry, she wouldn't call herself unhappy with her home life. She didn't want to jump into a life of crime and never see her family again just because she was lied to, for what she now knows is good reason. She didn't want this. She never asked for any of it.

"The two of us can make a lot of money together, Rachel," Peter continues, shaking her again. "We can live together, get to know each other. I know that it might have come as a blow to find out that I wanted nothing to do with you when I found out that Shelby was pregnant but looking at you now… you have so much potential. We can make this work."

He is rambling. Rachel does the same thing when she is nervous, but he is saying all the wrong things, and instead of convincing Rachel that he actually has her best interests at heart, he only manages to do the opposite.

His voice is back to being high-pitched and terrified. He speaks with the same tone he had used when he first found Quinn and Rachel sleeping in that car. At the time, Rachel had dismissed it as nerves, but as she stares into Peter's wide, glossy eyes, watching his pupils dart back and forth as fast as a dancing fly, she realizes that she was being naïve. He was stoned out of his mind. On what, Rachel didn't know, but the thought alone is terrifying enough to Rachel, who immediately feels herself start to cry.

"My dads will worry," she sobs as though this will make any difference to Peter or Darlene.

"But they stole you from me!" he repeats, giving her a little shake to go with it this time that makes Rachel flinch. "Don't you understand? We can sue your dads _and_ Shelby for everything they have. We can take the money and start a new life somewhere. Doesn't that sound nice?"

Rachel shakes her head, sputtering. That hardly sounded nice at all.

"I want to go home," she spits through her tears, struggling to speak through her increasing panic. "This was a mistake. I'm sorry. I want to leave. I want to go home."

Sensing an increasingly tense situation, Rachel sees Darlene's face change. She steps forward and practically hip checks Peter out of her way. Her eyes aren't skipping around inside of her head like Peter's were. There is no sign of a panic inside of her face at all. What made her father dangerous was that he was desperate and pathetic. What made Darlene dangerous is that she is cruel and calculating. It isn't him that Rachel had to be afraid of. It was her.

"What did I just say to you, girl?" she repeats. Her voice is calm despite the two unnerved people in front of her.

Rachel really wishes that the woman would start using her name. She remembers reading somewhere that a person is less likely to hurt or kill you if they call you by your proper name. Rachel is just building up the nerve to make the request when she glances up and realizes that she has a bigger problem. At some point in her state of panic, Darlene had managed to produce a small handgun. It did not look particularly big, but it certainly looked like it could get the job done if that's what it came down to.

Rachel lets a small cry escape her lips at the sight before she can stop it and sinks back inside of her chair so hard that she almost topples it over again.

"I won't say anything, I swear," Rachel sobs. "Just let me go. I'll go home. We'll leave you alone. You'll never see us again. Please."

She cries and pleads pathetically, despite knowing how unbecoming it is. She knows that people had been warning her about what might happen if she were to meet Peter, but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine this. It seemed like a pretty steep price to pay for naivety, and for all her efforts, the only thing that she gets in return is Darlene pressing the barrel of her pistol hard against the flat edge of her sternum.

"Just calm down, girl, you're not going anywhere," she tells Rachel. "Now, how about you and me have a little talk and then we can figure out what we're gonna do with you next."


	12. Chapter 12

**Don't have much to say this time around. Just a big thanks to all of you guys for still showing up!**

* * *

 **Chapter 12** **:**

Outside, Quinn continues to pace frantically back and forth up and down the driveway.

She goes as far as the street, which is probably a quarter mile away from the house before turning around and making her way back. Her actions have two benefits. First, it keeps her mind off of her own stupidity, which she seems to be reminded of often when it comes to Rachel. Second, it keeps her warm. The cold is starting to feel blistering. Her fingers are tingling painfully with it and as she comes back up to the darkened house, she flexes them a couple of times, trying to regain feeling.

When even that fails, Quinn stops pacing and instead, retreats back to that stupid truck she wishes she had never gotten inside of in the first place. The thing is a piece of garbage, but it is still warmer in there then it is outside, even if only by a miniscule fraction.

Quinn grips the door handle and rips the car door open hyper-aggressively in her anger. She feels angry at a lot of things at the moment. She is angry at herself for being so stupid as to have ever brought up her plans with Beth to Rachel at all. She is angry at herself for not stopping Rachel from going inside of that house on her own. She is angry at herself for not speaking up the moment she sensed a bad vibe from this house and from Peter …

Quinn sits in the passenger seat of the truck and stares up at the house, silently praying that Rachel comes back soon.

She slams the truck door closed, so hard in her anger that the entire frame rattles. For a moment, Quinn thinks that this ratty old truck is going to fall to pieces right here. The last thing that she needs is to get blamed on destroying Peter's personal property on top of everything else.

Luckily, the only thing that happens is that the glove compartment springs open, striking the ball of her knee in just the right spot to make her yelp with pain.

Rubbing her knee, Quinn blinks into the dull light that illuminates the compartment. Her eyes have become so adjusted to the dark that it takes a moment for them to focus. Even when they finally do, it takes her another moment to realize exactly what she is looking at.

It is not the usual contents of a glove compartment. Inside of Quinn's is a registration and an insurance card, a manual that she has never looked at, and about a thousand napkins that she stores inside of there, just in case. Inside of Peter's is only what looks like a hundred little plastic baggies, all about half full of the same exact thing.

Swallowing, Quinn picks up one of the bags and holds it to the light, studying it.

There is a fine powder inside of it. Quinn can't tell underneath the poor lighting, but it is either white or a light gray color. Either way, she is not foolish enough to believe that it is anything other than what she thinks it is. Her blood feels like it has just been injected with ice water. She may have been spending the last couple of weeks trying to build a reputation with The Skanks, but heroin was out of her league. Hell, it was out of _their_ league.

Quinn throws the baggie back into the pile with its matching brothers, afraid to be caught so much as holding it. She slams the glove compartment closed again and scrambles to pull herself out of the truck. She doesn't even feel the cold anymore. Her heart is pounding, flooding her body with the warmth of adrenaline. The only thing that she can focus on now is getting into that house and getting Rachel out.

Should they have been anticipating something like this? Quinn knew that something seemed off about Peter the moment that she laid eyes on him. Should she really be expected, as a seventeen-year-old high school student from the suburbs, to identify a drug addled dealer when confronted with one? In retrospect, it seems obvious. I guess that both her and Rachel are guilty of wanting to only see the best of people.

The blonde runs up to the front of the house. For a moment, she considers barging right through the front door, grabbing Rachel, and dragging her out, no matter what kind of a fight the brunette puts up against her.

She stops herself just at the base of the stairs. She has no idea what is going on inside of that house. Did Rachel know the kind of danger she was in? Did she know just what kind of business that Peter was involved in? What would he do to them if he found out that they were onto him?

She has already screwed up so much. This time, the consequences would be to put Rachel in even more danger than what she was already in. She couldn't risk it.

With that thought in mind, Quinn slinks off into the shadows, scaling the side of the house. She peers through open windows, searching for signs of movement from inside, trying to read the room so that she might come up with a productive plan to get Rachel out. Even if they do escape this house unscathed, where will they go next? They are in the middle of nowhere. She had no idea where the nearest person, let alone house is. It is dark outside and freezing cold. In the Midwest, there aren't even any trees to hide behind. Plus, Peter has his truck. If they tried to escape on foot, they would be caught in a heartbeat…

Quinn is really starting to wish that she hadn't thrown Rachel's cell phone out of the window on the ride over here. It had been a rash decision made in the heat of emotion. Now, it only felt like poor planning, especially considering the fact that Quinn had been anticipating this meeting to turn in all the wrong directions.

Quinn sees her first sign of activity from inside of the house at the third window she looks inside of. She peers through the slightly open curtains and a shadow encompasses her so close that she is afraid that she has been caught before she could even really get started.

Gasping, Quinn ducks underneath the window sill. Crouching in mud so wet that it soaks through her shoes, the blonde presses herself hard into the siding so that should anybody look out the window, they will not see her and hopefully think that whatever they saw was just a trick of the light.

She stays like this for a couple moments, breathing heavily. Her lungs sting as the cold air filters in and out of them with a heaving force. When nothing happens after a full minute or two, she risks looking up again.

This time, she sticks to the shadows, clinging to the window's corners. She realizes immediately that the shadow had come from Peter. Luckily, his back is turned to the window. He doesn't seem to have noticed her standing there at all. She stays where she is though. Quinn knows that it is unlikely that she will get so lucky a second time.

The man is swaying back and forth gently. His arms are crossed over his front, but he is so thin that his hands reach all the way behind him. Quinn can see his bony fingers twitching. She cannot see his face, but she doesn't need to read his expression to know that he is nervous. Or maybe he's just high. Quinn reasons that this is a reasonable assumption for a man with a hoard of heroin sitting inside of his truck.

She wonders what he is on. Quinn doesn't know a lot about drugs, but she did know that heroin is certainly not supposed to make you look like you'd just downed a carton of Red Bull. Quinn wishes he was taking something that would just make him pass out. It would make it a lot easier for her to get into that house and grab Rachel.

The man is swaying back and forth on unsteady feet. He seems to be staring at something intently. Quinn wants to know what it is. She is trying her hardest to catch a glimpse over his shoulder while simultaneously remaining hidden. The task is proving to be enormously difficult.

Then she finally does see it and she almost wishes that she hadn't.

The first thing that Quinn notices when she sees Rachel is that the brunette is crying. Somebody had hurt her. A primordial instinct rips through the blonde's stomach in a way that Quinn knows only happens when someone you love is in danger and there is nothing that you can do about it. It doesn't help that Quinn knows that the only reason that Rachel is in this position right now is because of her.

Quinn bears her teeth. For a moment, she feels angry enough to dive through the window, kill Peter with her bare hands, and pull Rachel to safety. Then, the man moves a little bit more and Quinn realizes that the situation is even more dire than it originally looked.

The blonde lets out a sharp gasp before she can stop herself.

She closes her eyes tight, hoping that when she opens them again, she will not see Rachel sitting in a chair with a gun pointed at her chest, but her eyes open and the scene remains the same.

Quinn pulls herself away from the window and presses herself into the house, trying to buy herself time. Her head is swarming. She is having a hard time concentrating when she is half expecting to hear a gunshot ring out through the darkness at any second.

She forces herself to calm down and closes her eyes again. She doesn't make any noise, not even to breathe. Going back to the truck would be worthless. There is nothing in there that can help her. No phone, no weapons, not even the keys to drive to go get help. Running off on foot to find help would be a pointless task as well. Quinn knows that by the time she finds somebody, Rachel may very well be hurt by then, or worse…

Quinn shakes her head hard. She doesn't want to think like that. She can't.

The blonde realizes that if she is going to get Rachel out of there, she is going to have to do it herself. She had been stupid enough to get Rachel into this mess. She thought that it was a good idea. They could kill two birds with one stone and find the answers that Rachel was looking for while simultaneously avoiding The Skanks' revenge back at school. Quinn realizes now that she would rather face one hundred Skanks at the same time than have to face this.

Quinn tip-toes silently towards the back of the house. She knows that going through the front door is not an option. The best that she can do now is hope that there is a back way into this home.

She peers through the windows as she goes, searching for signs that there is anybody else aside from Peter, Rachel, and the woman who seems to be holding Rachel hostage. She sees no one. Outside of that dining room, the house is as silent as the vast fields around her.

Utilizing the sparse light in the backyard, Quinn starts to search through the pile of junk in the yard for an object she might be able to defend herself and Rachel with. She settles to pick up a piece of pipe that she finds near a rotting shed. It is small but solid. One good swing should get the job done if it came down to it. Then again, she wonders if it is stupid to think she will have any success bringing a rusty pipe to a gun fight…

The back door looks loose and rusty, and Quinn doesn't want to press her luck by risking opening it. It looks like it would squeak as loud as a trumpet blast. Instead, she finds an open window that, upon first glance, appears to lead into a kitchen. The room is completely empty. To add to her luck, there is also a phone connected to the far wall. She can hear voices drifting in from the dining room, and can even recognize Rachel's cries, but she forces herself to block that noise out.

 _I'll get you out of here soon,_ she thinks to herself, hoping that Rachel can somehow pick up on the message telepathically as she hoists herself steadily and silently through the window. She lands on two feet, silent like a cat. Never in her life has she been more grateful for Sue Sylvester and her years of Cheerios experience for making her so nimble.

Quinn goes straight to the phone. With trembling hands, she picks it up out of its cradle. It is an old-school type phone complete with rotary dial and a long, looping chord that keeps the receiver permanently attached to the wall.

Her first instinct is to dial 911, but it takes longer than usual because she first has to figure out how to use a rotary dial and second, because she has to move slowly. Every time she churns the gear to dial a number, it produces a mechanical whirring sound that seems to echo throughout the entire house.

Cringing, Quinn keeps her eye on the hallway leading towards the front of the house the entire time, searching for signs of movement. She is ready to hide at a moment's notice, but the need to do so never comes. She finishes dialing and holds the receiver up to her ear, patiently waiting for the sound of an operator on the other line only to hear… a busy signal?

 _What kind of Hills Have Eyes town is this?_ The thought crosses the blonde's mind as she actively works to suppress a groan of frustration. Quietly, she hangs the phone back up before attempting the emergency number again, only to be greeted with the same response.

The thought terrifies her. If this town doesn't even have enough people fielding their emergency calls, how many police officers will be available to rescue them if they are busy responding to another call? Quinn remembers Peter mentioning something about the nearest police station being forty five minutes away. Quinn wonders if that's at normal speed, or if they really put their foot on the gas, will they be able to get here sooner?

She wishes that she knew the regular number to get straight to the police station and ask for help, but she doesn't. She doesn't even know the phone number for the Lima Police Station. In fact, Quinn can only think of one other number off of the top of her head that might be useful…

Figuring that she has nothing left to lose, Quinn turns back to the phone, prays for a miracle, and slowly dials.

* * *

Shelby Corcoran is driving down a desolate highway at breakneck speeds. She can tell that she is quickly advancing on her destination, because the number of cars on the road is getting scarcer, and in the last hour, she is certain that she has seen more cows than she has people.

She has been driving for almost twelve straight hours. According to her GPS, she has been speeding consistently enough to have knocked an hour out of her drive time, but she'd had to stop twice for gas and to grab a little bit of food and water for herself. She almost didn't but reasoned that she would not be much help to Quinn and Rachel if she was on the verge of passing out from dehydration once she finally did get to them.

The woman's eyes are heavy and wild from spending so many hours staring straight out of a windshield. The lines on the highway are starting to look like optical illusions. She passes it off as exhaustion and takes another sip of the black coffee that she had grabbed at her last stop, although that had been more than four hours ago, and the bitter liquid is now freezing cold on top of not even being prepared the way Shelby usually takes it.

Shelby is so concentrated on the road ahead that when her cell phone starts to ring, it frightens her.

It is the first sound that she has heard in hours aside from the highway blowing past her. She hadn't even had the radio on.

Shelby shakes her head out of her daze and forces herself to look down at her phone. The number is unfamiliar, but the small banner below it tells her that it is coming from a Nebraska area code and that is enough to convince Shelby to answer.

"Hello?" she gasps into the phone, praying that it is Quinn or Rachel calling to apologize for their foolish behavior, calling to beg Shelby's forgiveness, to tell her to come swoop in and save them, which she will graciously do. Then, once Shelby has them safely back in her car and her blood pressure has returned to normal, she would spend the next twelve hours back to Lima screaming at them for their foolishness.

"Shelby?"

The voice is whispering. That is the first thing that Shelby notices. It is so quiet, that Shelby can't even place it. She is so busy trying to figure out who she is talking to that she doesn't immediately pick up on how unusual the volume is.

"Quinn?" Shelby breathes, finally placing the voice to the familiar blonde. "Is that you?"

"It's me."

 _Why is she whispering?_ Shelby asks herself. She is having a hard time hearing the blonde, but that doesn't mean that she hasn't noticed how unnaturally high-pitched her voice sounds. Even through the phone, Shelby can tell that she is panting. Shelby can tell that it is not because she is tired, it is because she's scared.

"Quinn, what's wrong?" Shelby asks into the phone. Her grip on the steering wheel tightens as she forces herself to fight through the fear and keep concentrating on the road.

She can feel her heart pounding inside of her throat. She tries her hardest not to think about all the possible answers to her question. She tries her hardest not to think about why it is Quinn calling her and not Rachel, or why the blonde sounds so frightened. Finally, she tries her hardest to tell Quinn that everything is going to be alright, but she can't. The only thing that she can do is pray that the girls are able to hold on until she can get there.

* * *

 _The attic bedroom of Shelby's parent's house is stifling in late July._

 _She has lived in this room her entire life and she has never noticed how hot it can get. Then again, her sensitivity to heat has been unforgiving these days. Shelby wonders how much more this pregnancy is going to affect her body as she flips absently through the yellow pages that she had stolen out of her parent's junk drawer._

 _It is a Saturday night in July. While all of Shelby's friends were bouncing back and forth between endless graduation parties, Shelby finds that she has lost her appetite for such events. Not that she gets invited to very many things like that anymore, anyway._

 _She has to pretend that it doesn't bother her. She has to pretend like she is in no condition to go to a party, anyway. Her feet are so swollen that she barely wears shoes anymore. The child inside of her performed somersaults at all hours of the day, leaving her with morning, afternoon,_ and _night sickness. It would be at least another five months before she could so much as think about sipping alcohol, or even caffeine from the sodas the most naïve of her friend's parents still left out at parites. Nothing about that screamed party-type. Still, it hurt that all of her friends had turned on her so suddenly._

 _Trying not to think about that, Shelby reminds herself that she has more important things to do right now, anyway._

 _With school being out, avoiding Peter has gotten increasingly easier. His absence was a blessing, but Shelby wasn't foolish enough to believe that it wasn't up to her to ensure that it was permanent. Five months might feel like forever away, but she knew that as much as it didn't feel like it most days, the day that her child would be born was right around the corner, and Shelby had to be prepared for when that day came._

 _Shelby has always been a preparer. She is organized and ambitious and has an uncanny ability to anticipate every mile before it happened. Then, Peter Gabbanelli had walked into her life, and now, she couldn't anticipate a thing. All she knows is that she is no longer safe here in Lima. Neither is her unborn child. She has gotten lucky so far this summer but refused to be caught off guard by Peter again._

 _She finds the section in the Yellow Pages for family lawyers and begins to skim the list with her finger, jotting down the number of every lawyer outside of the immediate vicinity of her home, and more importantly, Peter's._

 _She had called a few lawyers already, but all of them had given her outrageous quotes. If she blew all of the money that she has been saving up for New York on a lawyer, then it wouldn't matter what the outcome was. Peter would get to her if she stayed in Lima, no matter what a judge ruled._

 _It is nearly an hour of grueling research when a firm kick to her ribs snaps her back into reality._

 _"Ouch!" the expecting mother gasps, cradling her right side where her child had just landed a vicious punch. Or maybe it was a kick. Shelby had read somewhere that a pregnant mother should be able to tell which, but she hasn't grown that familiar with the child growing inside her yet, and wonders if everybody is right when they say that she is out of her league with this._

 _Ever since she had crossed that four month threshold, the idea that there is a tiny human growing inside of her is a fact that is getting harder for Shelby to ignore._

 _In the beginning, she merely had a nuisance. She had a problem that felt like the size of a galaxy, even though her OB told her that it was more like the size of a chickpea. She tried to keep her mind off of it as much as possible._

 _Then, she started running off to throw up every hour. A few weeks later, her stomach started puffing out so obviously, that she couldn't look down without being reminded of what was happening inside of her. She would be lying down, trying to fall asleep when a kick or a punch or a series of hiccups would jolt her awake. When both mother and child finally settled down, Shelby would roll over to go to sleep, and her baby would do the same, lodging itself in that same spot under her diaphragm every night, where Shelby pretended that she could feel both of their heartbeats, blending together and lulling the other to sleep._

 _If she could, Shelby would keep that baby safely inside of her for the rest of her life. Here, she felt like she could protect it. On the outside, who knew what could happen. But she couldn't. Shelby knew that. That is why she was spending her Saturday night looking up family law attorneys._

 _"Getting restless in there?" Shelby speaks to her stomach as she feels another violent lurch from the inside. She sighs and rests her hands against her stomach. Come to think of it, she is getting quite sick of all of this work herself._

 _"Me too," she sighs, and pulls on her sneakers, resolving to go for a walk around the block before the walls of her bedroom drive her crazy._

* * *

 _The city of Lima is busy on a Saturday night in the middle of the summer._

 _People pack the streets. She sees large groups of teenagers rolling their bikes recklessly through the streets, couples holding hands, college students, home for break on their way to the bar… Then there is Shelby, alone save for the child inside of her keeping her company._

 _She gets a couple blocks before she sees a familiar Rolls Royce on the corner up ahead. Shelby freezes. The car is obvious. Nobody else in town drives anything even like it. For a moment, Shelby stares like a deer caught in the headlights, then she scrambles to duck into the alleyway of the restaurant she had been walking past._

 _She peers around the corner, watching the car idle at a red light. She spots Peter sitting in the passenger seat. His father is driving the car. Shelby swallows and wonders if this is what the Gabbanelli family will reduce her to for the rest of her life._

 _Shelby isn't sure if she just didn't want to see the truth about Peter and his family, or if she was really as clueless as she made herself out to be. Either way, she noticed the change in her ex gradually. He had proudly announced that he had been taken on at his father's business, and immediately, they were given free meals at restaurants. They didn't have to wait in line at the movies anymore. One time, Peter had been pulled over on the way home from a party going 60 in a 35 with an open beer in his hand, and the cop had just let him go._

 _Shelby didn't think that things like what Peter's family was involved in existed in Lima. They were only things that she saw in the movies. She waited too long to realize that Peter wasn't being treated the way he was because people liked him. He had power and he had money and although nobody ever came outright and said it, Shelby doubted very much that he had acquired these things in a construction business that Peter always insisted his father owned._

 _Shelby stays hidden in that alleyway until the light finally turns green again and the Rolls Royce peels off down the road. There is no indication that either Peter or his father had seen Shelby. The girl chalks it off as a close call and decides to head back home before she could push her luck any further._

 _When she finally gets back to her house, her parents still aren't home. They were celebrating their twentieth anniversary, although Shelby thinks that it is a miracle that they made it that far. Twenty years of marriage, and Shelby is almost certain that they have hated each other for at least nineteen and a half of those years._

 _Chucking the thought aside, Shelby settles herself onto the couch and grabs the remote. The best part about being home alone is that she is finally able to watch what she wants on television for a change._

 _An hour into her binge, her pregnancy cravings start to get the better of her._

 _Luckily, Shelby has become used to such things and has since learned to keep emergency snacks within arm's reach at all times._

 _Her mother has always been a stickler for health food, but Shelby learned a long time ago that if she hides a pint of ice cream in the back corner of the freezer underneath a frozen bag of broccoli that she is pretty sure has been in there since she was in elementary school, her mother would never notice. As expected, she dives into the freezer and there it is waiting for her._

 _She doesn't even bother to put it in a bowl. Instead, she peels off the lid, sticks a spoon straight into the heart of the ice cream, and makes her way back to her sitcoms. She is halfway to the couch when the doorbell rings._

 _Shelby places her ice cream down on the table with a sigh of longing and approaches the door. People haven't exactly been rushing to visit her since word of her pregnancy got out. She is fully expecting to find one of her parent's friends on the other side of the door, where she would be forced to tell them her parents are not home through their patronizing stares, but when she opens the door, it is not one of her parent's friends standing there at all._

 _"Peter…" Shelby gasps, unable to mask the surprise and slight tone of fear in her voice. "What are you doing here?"_

 _"I saw you out walking," he tells her. Shelby swallows. So, he had seen her. She supposed that it was foolish for her to think that she could slink away from him unnoticed._

 _"Oh?" Shelby asks trying and failing to pretend like she has no idea what he is talking about. She risks a glance up, taking him all in. His hair has grown longer since she had last seen him at graduation. Loose curls dangle down and hug his smooth jawline. It fits him, Shelby notices, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't remember what he is capable of._

 _"Were you trying to hide from me, Shelby?" he smiles at her again, but there is a cruel calculation behind the gesture that makes Shelby uneasy. She takes pause and he takes advantage. He steps into her house without an invitation. Without particularly meaning to, Shelby takes a step away, inadvertently giving him further access inside._

 _"I… I don't know what you're talking about," the girl stutters, unconvincing._

 _"I've been trying to get a hold of you for weeks." He ignores her comment. They both know it is a lie. Instead, he establishes himself. He is looking around like he is trying to make a mental map of her home. Shelby catches him eyeing up some family pictures on the wall and has to suppress a shudder._

 _"I went down to Cincinnati to spend some time with my aunt," Shelby informs him. It is not a lie. Her aunt had some temporary work that she could do. It was labor intensive, and Shelby did as much as she could before her aunt found out about her condition and sent her back home. The job had been helpful while it had lasted. Not only had Shelby been able to stay far away from Peter, she also managed to save a little bit of money to help her once she finally did make it to New York, away from Lima, and away from the Gabbanelli family forever._

 _"I get it," Peter shrugs. He turns back towards Shelby and shoves his hands deep inside of his pockets. "I've been working with my father these last couple of months, too. He's got a lot of good opportunities for me."_

 _"Oh?" Shelby breathes, pretending to be interested. She doesn't know what to say. Everybody in town is now familiar with the Gabbanelli family and what they do. She doesn't know what Peter is implying by making her privy to this information, but she certainly doesn't like it._

 _"Yup," Peter nods. He walks slowly further into the house. Shelby doesn't even realize that he is backing her into a corner until her back hits the wall. "He's been pretty adamant about keeping a low profile lately. Especially since we had to leave New York so…_ suddenly. _He's been using me to do some of the jobs that he can't do anymore."_

 _A moment too late, Shelby realizes that Peter isn't here to simply make small talk and catch up with her. He is threatening her. He is using his power and his position to do what he is best at, manipulation and intimidation. And while Shelby doesn't know exactly what Peter has been doing for his father, she isn't stupid enough to think that it is anything that makes him above hurting her._

 _Shelby feels her heart begin to pound as Peter's eyes slide down towards her stomach. The girl is glad that she is wearing a particularly baggy sweatshirt that covers the protrusion, but she gets the impression that Peter hadn't come all this way without knowing what was under there._

 _Shelby doesn't say anything. Peter has backed her all the way into her kitchen. She closes her eyes. She wishes that she had never answered that doorbell. She could have just pretended not to be home. Then, she would be eating ice cream and watching mindless television instead of fearing for her safety, her child's…_

 _"There's a lot of rumors going around, Shelby." Peter presses the girl tight into the wall. His face is directly in front of hers. Shelby can smell the mint on his breath from his gum. "Some people think that you already went to New York, got yourself knocked up like a little slut, and came crawling back. Of course, most of them are talking about me."_

 _His hand flies out. Shelby feels him press a palm against the center of her stomach. His touch is soft, but a maternal instinct she has yet to experience rips through her like fire. She rips herself out of Peter's grip and stumbles to get out of the corner, to get away from him._

 _"I thought I told you to get rid of it," Peter sneers. His entire face changes as he turns back to face Shelby and for the first time, the girl feels truly afraid._

 _"Please, Peter, you don't understand," she begs. She doesn't know how to tell Peter that she doesn't know how to let go of this baby. She doesn't know how to convince him that she will make it hers and hers alone. He doesn't need to have any involvement. No one needs to know._

 _How is she supposed to just walk away? Now that she has known that she is capable of creating something so perfect, how can she be expected to forget?_

 _Peter however, doesn't seem to care about what she feels. He is back on top of her in a flash. Shelby just has time to watch his hand rear backwards. She doesn't see it coming when she feels the back of his hand snap hard against her lip._

 _Her head snaps sideways. The fear grips her much more than the pain does, and she feels a sob escape from her throat despite the fact that she knows that that is what he is looking for._

" _I gave you the opportunity to do something about this on your own, Shelby," Peter tells her. He is placing all of the blame on her. Shelby reasons to bite her tongue against reminding him that she didn't get pregnant by herself. "God, my father warned me about this. He told me that woman are too sensitive, that they can never be trusted with things like this. It is up to the men to take matters into their own hands."_

" _What do you mean?" Shelby stutters despite the fact that she is not sure she wants the answer. She takes a step backwards, towards the basement stairs. The door locks from the inside. If she can get past him and lock herself in, she can use the cellar door to escape and then go to a neighbors to call for help…_

 _Her cardinal mistake lies in the fact that she had waited on an answer. The only one that he gives her is a tiny smirk that is immediately followed by a hard shove._

 _Shelby feels herself stumble backwards into the open doorway leading towards the basement. Her stomach gives a mighty whoosh as she tips backwards on her heels and allows gravity to take her, with nothing behind her to catch her fall._

 _The girl's arms circle a couple of times, looking for something to try to catch her, but they find nothing but air. There is a terrible handful of seconds that appear to happen in slow-motion. Shelby knows that she is in trouble. She knows that she is about to get hurt very, very badly. And her baby? The fragile being that she was supposed to be protecting didn't stand a chance._

 _She catches a glimpse of Peter mid-fall. He is staring at her from the top of the stairwell as she plunges down. There seems to be a sick sense of satisfaction in his eyes, with no sense of urgency to try to help her. That is the last thing that Shelby notices before she feels her back land on the old, wooden stairs with a crunch that sends a pain like a bolt of lightning shooting up her spine._

 _She tries her hardest to cry out for help, but her body is performing a remarkable series of backwards somersaults down the final handful of stairs. She feels every blow until finally, she lands on the cool, concrete floor, flat on her back, the back of her head smacking so hard against it that she sees stars._

 _Surprisingly, there is no pain in that moment. Instead, she feels only a remarkable amount of dizziness, shrouded with a surprising warmth. She wonders if this means that the fall maybe wasn't as bad as she initially suspected, but then, she tries to stand up and her body refuses to follow the instructions her brain is setting for it. Then, she realizes if maybe the fall had actually been worse._

 _Her vision is fuzzy. When she blinks, her eyes refuse to focus. The only thing that she can see is a shadow standing at the top of the stairs. For a second, she thinks to call for help, but then, her injured brain reminds her that it is Peter standing there, and that he is the one who had pushed her in the first place. If she asked him for help, he might just come down here and finish her off for good._

 _She keeps her mouth shut, and a moment later, she watches the shadow of Peter Gabbanelli turn away from the doorway and walk calmly from her home. She hears the front door open and shut with a sound that she processes like she is underwater, and then, Shelby realizes that she is all alone, laying on her basement floor, trying to find the strength to move._

 _She is still for a couple of minutes. The immediate aftermath of the fall had been calm, but now that her body is starting to process her injuries, everything hurts. She can feel a cut that has opened up in the back of her head. She feels the blood pooling underneath her and wonders how bad it is._

 _When she tries to lift her arm to prod at the cut, an explosion of pain erupts inside of her mid-section and travels straight up her spine and into her brain. She is unable to hold back the cry of pain. Using all of her effort, Shelby turns onto her side and cradles her pregnant stomach. On a normal day, she is begging her child to_ stop _moving. Now, she doesn't feel a thing and she finds herself begging for a sign of life from inside of there. A kick, a punch, hell she would take a sneeze. Anything._

" _Come on…" the mother whispers to the growing child inside of her. "Come on, move. Please, move."_

 _Still, she gets nothing._

 _Sobbing, Shelby forces herself to her knees. Her vision gets blurry immediately, and she has to take a break, but she cannot very well lay on this basement floor forever. She needs to get help. Her child needs help, and increasingly, she seems to be the only one in the world willing to provide it._

" _Hang on," she begs the child, grabbing onto one of the support beams, using it to force herself to her feet as she begins the daunting task of walking back up the stairs she had just made a dramatic plunge down. "I'll get you help. You'll be okay. I promise, you'll be just fine."_

* * *

Something is terribly wrong. Quinn doesn't have to say anything for Shelby to understand this.

The mother's natural instinct is roaring at her. She thinks about Beth, hundreds of miles behind her, and she thinks about Rachel, just a handful in front, and she silently prays that she will make it in time to save Rachel while still being able to turn around and get back to Beth.

She has never hated somebody as much as she hates Peter Gabbanelli in this moment. She hates him for ever putting her in a position where she has to question her daughters' futures. Mostly, she hates him for allowing her to go all these years thinking that she didn't still have reason to be afraid of him.

"Listen to me, Quinn. I know where you are, and I am on my way to get you." Shelby speaks only when the blonde can't seem to find her voice. She is determined to get the words out, should something happen that might cut them off. Even if it is a lie, Shelby wants to give something for the blonde to hold onto. Her GPS tells her that she is thirty minutes away. If she pushes, she could probably make it in twenty. Would that be too long? "I'll be there soon. Until I get there, I need you to find some place safe and stay there. Can you do that? Are you somewhere safe?"

"N-no," Quinn hiccups, and although it is the answer that Shelby is expecting, it sucks the air out of the woman's lungs anyway. "Shelby, we're not where you think we are. We're not at Peter's house."

"What do you mean?" Shelby's heart seizes. The girls had been so strategic in their bid for information. Is it possible that after they had gotten Peter's address, they had anticipated Shelby going to Genesis for answers? Had they paid the girl to give Shelby a fake address? Had they gone into this knowing they would be sending their parents on a wild goose chase to nowhere?

"Peter took us somewhere," Quinn explains. "A friend's house."

"A friend's house?" Shelby sounds suspicious. She has no idea what Quinn is trying to imply. She doesn't even know if she is driving in the right direction anymore. The only thing she does know for sure is that she does not like the way that the blonde hesitates.

"Quinn, where are you?" she demands. Her voice is no-nonsense. Coach Corcoran is seeping out of her in her fear, but if that is what it takes to get what she needs from Quinn, then so be it. "Where's Rachel?"

There are so many things that the blonde is not saying. She is upset, that much is clear, and she seems to be in trouble, judging by the way she refuses to allow her voice to go above a soft whisper, but where is she? And where is Rachel? Shelby feels herself grip the steering wheel a little bit tighter. She is not so sure that she wants to hear the answer to her own question.

"I think… I think that we're in some kind of drug house."

Shelby nearly swerves off of the road. She has spent the last twelve hours trying to convince herself that she would find Rachel and Quinn, and that when she did, they would be just fine. She told herself that they were smart girls, that maybe Peter has changed in all of the years it's been since she's seen them. Now, she realizes that she was only fooling herself.

The last time she had seen Peter, he had been a desperate boy, fighting through a fall from grace. As rumors about him and Shelby circulated, he fought desperately to impress his father, even if it meant pushing a pregnant teenager down the stairs or robbing a gas station… In the end, she should have known that this is where he would have ended up, hiding in a small town like Foster, Nebraska, left only as the shell of the man he once was, forced to utilize his skills as a small-time player in a sleazy drug ring.

It is a tragic bookmark to the man's already tragic life, but Shelby is having a hard time feeling bad for him. Rachel might have been the one to show up to his door tonight, but he is the one who has been putting her in danger since before she was born. Shelby had been content letting the man live out the remainder of his days miserable and alone. She should have known that Rachel was too good of a person at her core to ever let that happen. Looking at herself, and at Peter, Shelby wonders where the girl had gotten that caring nature from. She is wondering only now, far too late, if she hadn't been doing Rachel any favors by withholding the truth like her and the Berry men had thought.

"Rachel went inside with him and I… I found some of the drugs in his car and I panicked and… and…" Quinn's breath is increasing inside of her chest as she struggles to get her story out. Shelby reasons that she can get the details later. For now, she wants to know what she can do from all the way over here to keep the girls safe. "I think that Rachel is in serious trouble, Shelby."

The mother's face pales so suddenly that she can literally feel the blood draining from her face and down into her feet. She forgets to take her next breath. She knew it. She just knew that this is how this trip was going to end.

"What kind of trouble?" the woman forces.

"I-I don't know. I can't really explain right now." Quinn is still whispering, but her voice sounds rushed, like she is afraid that she is running out of time. "Please hurry."

"Where are you, Quinn?"

She hears the blonde take a deep breath before quickly stuttering out a series of instructions to the best of her ability. The good news is that Genesis hadn't given Shelby a fake address. The better news is that the blonde's navigational skills are exceptional. She had been staring out the window the entire time Peter had been driving, taking it all in.

Shelby tries her hardest to commit the instructions to her long term memory. She closes her eyes and tries to repeat the directions back to herself, but her sense of direction is subpar compared to Quinn's. Make a left out of Peter's driveway and another left at the farm silo. Cross the main street into the other side of town and make the first right. Or was it a left?

"Quinn, can you say that one more time?" Shelby is yelling into the phone now, because in her distress, she is having a hard time concentrating on remembering anything. Suddenly, she can't even remember which way Quinn told her to turn out of Peter's driveway. And what about the house? Quinn had informed her that they were in a white house at the end of a long driveway with a house number spray painted on a sign out front, but Quinn hadn't noticed a street name, and was the number 1567, or was it 1483? She knows that they are not nearly close, but her head is spinning, and she feels suddenly worthless.

"Quinn!" Shelby shouts again, because the blonde seems to have gone temporarily deaf and is no longer responding to her.

Shelby strains her ears hard, searching for any indication that Quinn is still there, but she hears nothing, not even the blonde's hushed breathing. A moment later, a frantic beeping fills Shelby's ears, indicating that the line has gone dead.

"Dammit!" the woman screams, slamming her fist into the steering wheel so hard that the car swerves into the next lane over. Luckily, she is the only one on the road.

Slowly, she manages to regain control through a series of deep, steady breaths. Panicking wasn't going to help. It wasn't going to help her, and it certainly wasn't going to help Rachel and Quinn. If she was going to help the girls, first she would have to get to them in one piece.

She tries her hardest not to focus on the girls, on what they might be going through or what state they will be in when Shelby finally does get to them. She forces herself to think productively. She picks her cell phone back up, she dials 911, and she presses her foot even harder against the gas pedal than she did before, determined to get to Rachel and Quinn before it is too late.

* * *

 _It had taken Shelby longer than what she was comfortable with to make it all the way up the stairs to get to the phone and dial 911, but she had done it, and the accomplishment was something she felt proud of, even if the reason she needed help in the first place was not._

 _Now, she is sitting nervously by herself on a cot in the ER, waiting for a technician to tell her whether or not she needed stitches on the cut on the back of her head._

 _The doctor had already been in to see her. Remarkably, he told her that she had no broken bones. He wanted an X-Ray of her ribs just in case, but Shelby had refused, citing the fact that her child had been through enough. Instead, she had endured an agonizing physical assessment of her rib cage. The doctor had pressed his hands into each and every one, not gently, Shelby might add, searching for signs of cracks or fractures. He had found nothing but some heavy bruising and told her while she was bound to be very sore for the next couple of days, she was very lucky otherwise._

 _The news is great and all, but it is not her that she is concerned about._

 _The OB takes a long time to come down to see her. She had been delivering twins in a ward somewhere upstairs where Shelby imagined that she would be one day. Now, she only hopes._

 _"How old are you, hon?" the woman asks her, only after she has taken all of her vitals and listened to Shelby deny her request to call her parents. Shelby wonders if they were home from dinner yet. If they were, her nosy neighbors probably would have already informed them that there had been an ambulance at the front of their house earlier, whisking their pregnant daughter away. The lack of their presence yet indicated to Shelby that either they weren't home yet, or they just didn't care. It hurts her heart to realize that she doesn't know which one it is._

 _"I'm eighteen."_

 _"Eighteen, wow, I thought you were much older than that."_

 _Shelby blushes although she knows that the comment was meant to be a compliment. She has always presented herself with a certain aura of confidence. It was part of her persona. Ever since she had gotten pregnant, that characteristic has worked even more in her favor. People pitied her less if they thought she was in her mid-twenties rather than being a teenager. Usually, they only gave her those judgmental glances when they noticed she wasn't wearing a ring on her finger._

 _"That was quite the fall you took earlier," the woman continues, peeling a pair of gloves onto her skinny hands. "The ER doctor said you fell down some stairs?"_

 _Shelby pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth but nods vigorously. She couldn't very well tell the doctors the truth about what happened. Peter had thrown her down a flight of stairs just because he found out that she hadn't had an abortion. If she opened up to them about his behavior, he would kill her. She had no doubt about this._

 _"I haven't felt the baby move since the fall," Shelby tells the doctor. Her voice is quiet, terrified. She watches the doctor's face fall sympathetically._

 _"How about we take a look quick, then," she offers. Shelby swallows her tears and her fear and forces herself to nod as the doctor pulls an ultrasound machine close to the bed._

 _Shelby settles onto her back. At this point, she is more than familiar with the process. She raises her shirt over the small bump in her stomach without prompting and doesn't even flinch when the doctor squeezes the cool gel all over it._

 _"How many weeks along are you?" the woman asks, gathering the transducer inside of her hands. Shelby feels her heart pounding with nervous anticipation._

 _"Eighteen weeks on Thursday," she answers in a quiet voice._

 _"Do you know the sex yet?" she asks, making small talk as she waves the wand over Shelby's stomach, searching for a clear picture._

 _"It doesn't matter," Shelby sighs. "I'm not keeping the baby."_

 _"Alright," the doctor nods, continuing her work. She does not pass judgment. It is not her job to do so. It comes across almost as a relief to Shelby, who has felt the judgmental glares of everybody around her ever since the day she had taken that damn pregnancy test. She has to resist the urge to reach out and touch the woman in front of her, just to ask if she is real. "What options are you considering?"_

 _Shelby swallows. She knows that at eighteen weeks, her timeline for an abortion is waning rapidly. She had made the appointment after Peter first threatened her, but she had missed it. Twice. Did it matter anymore? Peter had told her right before he pushed her that he would have to take matters into his own hands and he had. Was it already too late? What a failure of a mother she turned out to be._

 _Before Shelby could gather the strength to answer the question, a soft, fast-paced thumping fills the room with a breath of relief that Shelby didn't even realize she was holding. Her baby's heartbeat. It is the most beautiful sound she has ever heard. The baby is still in there. Her baby was okay._

 _"Heartbeat is strong," the doctor smiles, but Shelby barely hears her. She is concentrating instead on letting the pulse fill her ears. Her eyes close against the sound. She has heard a lot of music in her life, but this is the best by far. "There's the heart right there, do you want to see it?"_

 _Shelby looks over her shoulder at the screen and follows the doctor's finger as she points to a tiny spot on the grainy, black and white image, a tiny drum pumping frantically. Shelby stares at the image, captivated. During her last ultrasound, the child inside of her hardly looked like a person. The technician at the time told her that her child was about the size of a kumquat, and roughly the same shape as well. Now, it actually looked like a baby, tiny and oddly shaped, yet perfect all the same._

 _"You said that you can tell the sex?" Shelby asks before she can stop herself. She looks up at the doctor with wide, pleading eyes, and watches as the woman nods._

 _"Would you like to know?"_

 _"Please," Shelby begs, ignoring the tear streaking down her cheek._

 _"Okay," the nurse breathes as she repositions the wand of the ultrasound, moving it around for a couple of minutes, searching for a good image._

 _"Congratulations, Ms. Corcoran," the woman smiles brightly the moment she finds what she is looking for. "It's a girl."_

* * *

Quinn notices the sound of the phone line going dead before she notices the shadow hovering over her.

"Hello?" she whispers into the phone. "Shelby? Hello?"

The only thing that plays back to her is the continuous ring of the dial tone. She recognizes the defeat and feels her concentration sway back to her surroundings where she finally notices a shadow hovering above her.

She swallows and counts to three, waiting for the shadow to disappear, but it never does. From her position squatting against the kitchen wall, she tilts her eyes up. There is a man that she doesn't recognize standing above her. His finger is holding down the hook switch of the phone, which explains her lost connection with Shelby. She feels too afraid to even move.

The two stare at each other for a long moment. The man is wearing a slimy grin. Quinn is caught, and they both know it.

"Well, well…" the man clicks his tongue with an expression on his tone like he has just struck gold. "What do we have here?"


	13. Chapter 13

**A few disclaimers before this chapter kicks off. Slight trigger warnings in this chapter, although nothing terribly graphic. If you want to skip anything/have any other reservations, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message.**

 **Also, school starts up again for me on Monday so if things move a bit slowly for a few weeks there is a 99.9% chance that that is the reason why. I had intended on finishing this story by the end of the summer, but me + time goals never seem to work out as planned. Anyway, thanks for your patience, it is much appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter 13** **:**

A hand wraps around the collar of Quinn's t-shirt. It is so strong that it manages to pull the blonde up from the squatting position that she had assumed underneath the telephone. She feels the receiver fall from her hand. It hits the wall hard and swings by the cord, where it bounces sharply against her knee. She tries to cry out in pain, but the hand around her collar tightens and she finds herself being strangled by her own t-shirt.

Gasping for air, Quinn has no choice but to lean into the man who is holding her. She tries not to think about whether or not being choked to death by an old Cheerios t-shirt is a better fate than what this man has in store for her. It would be a symbolic ending, that's for sure. Sue Sylvester would be proud.

Her feet march in double-time to keep up with the enormous steps of her captor. She hears the man muttering to himself, but her heartbeat is pounding inside of her ears, so she cannot make out the words. She can see his broad back rise and fall, heated by her presence.

Quinn swallows and tightens her grip on the pipe that she had only just managed to keep hold of behind her back throughout this ordeal. She is prepared to strike the man, thinking that there is no better time than when his back is turned, when he drags her into an open room, and there is Rachel, and Quinn hesitates just long enough to lose her opportunity.

"Darlene, we have a problem."

He throws Quinn into the wall on the opposite side of the room as Rachel. She tightens her grip against the pipe, holding it hard into her lower back. When she hits the wall, her broken hand gets wedged between it and her body and temporarily goes numb, but she fights through it and somehow manages to keep her fingers flexed around the only means of protection she has available to her.

The woman who is holding the gun at Rachel turns over her shoulder, trying to see what the sudden commotion is about. She looks angry by the interruption. Both her and the man who had grabbed her look remarkably alike, Quinn notices. The blonde wonders if they are related. She highly doubts that people as pleasant as these two would be married, although come to think of it, they seem like a match made in heaven…

"He brought a fucking cop with him."

Quinn looks up, confused at first. Her eyes dart about the room like she is looking for another person, wondering if she could get so lucky as to have the police here so quickly, but then she realizes that this man is talking about her. He thinks that she is the cop.

Quinn watches, eyes wide with horror as all eyes turn to her. She feels like a wounded animal being surrounded by lions. The room grows very small in its silence. Like magnetism, the first person whose eyes she meets is Rachel. The brunette is giving her an anguished look like she had wanted so much more for Quinn than to walk right into this trap like she had. Determined, Quinn buckles down and grits her teeth hard.

"I'm not a cop!" she bellows. She doesn't know why she is yelling. Maybe it has something to do with the fear that has started twisting its way up her spine like a cobra. It starts at the base of her pelvis and travels all the way up, settling at the bottom of her skull. "I'm seventeen years old, you moron!"

"Sure," the man grunts cheekily. He doesn't believe her, and he is done wasting his time with what he thinks are lies. Why else would she be here? Quinn recognizes that the truth is probably harder to believe than her being an undercover police officer, but she has to try.

"I caught her sneaking around back." He turns towards the woman who is still holding the gun at Rachel despite her eyes being transfixed on Quinn. "She was on the phone with somebody, trying to give them directions here. It could have been backup. We might wanna move."

Quinn watches the woman's face change as she studies Quinn up and down. Quinn uses the opportunity to study her in turn. Her face is long and round. As she seethes, Quinn watches her features squeeze inwards like a stress ball. Her eyes are so deep that Quinn thinks if they weren't such a piercing shade of blue, she would miss them entirely. Her hair is light brown, but it is greying at the roots and the color folds down from the crown of her head like the legs of a spider.

The blonde cannot read the exact expression on her face, but it sends a chill up her spine either way. It makes it worse that she cannot tell what she is thinking or what she plans on doing with her.

"You brought a fucking cop to this house?" she says coolly, turning an accusatory glare towards Peter.

"What? No, Darlene, come on, it's just my daughter's friend, she was waiting outside." Peter looks abashed by the accusation. He laughs nervously, trying to pin the theory off as crazy. "They're not police, they're kids. Come on, you know me. You know I would never talk to the cops let alone bring them here."

He is stammering nervously, cracking under the pressure. It does not bode well for the story that he is trying to convince this Darlene of, even if it is the truth and Quinn feels her hand flex a little bit tighter against the pipe she is hiding behind her back, sensing the possible need for a quick intervention.

"So, two girls show up at your front door out of the blue, one tells them she's your daughter, and you bring them here?" she spits between clenched teeth, astounded by the man's stupidity. "How do you know they weren't just feeding you some lie?"

"I… I… Look at her!" Peter stumbles over a flawed defense. His eyes are wide and desperate as he points a hand towards Rachel. "She looks just like me. She looks just like her mother."

"And Joe looks like a fucking barn animal, but I'm not paternity testing the wildlife in my backyard!" the woman bellows, seething as she turns back to Quinn. She clearly hadn't been expecting her evening to go this way. Quinn wonders if she had anticipated a calm night. Certainly, no night in this profession is calm, but Quinn and Rachel certainly aren't the only people who has had their back pressed against the wall by Peter Gabbanelli tonight.

"This is what I get for trusting a burnout addict, I should have known." The uncertainty inside of her eyes is starting to make Quinn more nervous than anything. "Back against the wall with the DEA closing in, so you cut a deal with police? Less jail time if you rat us out, Peter? Who did you call, girl?"

Darlene doesn't give Peter the opportunity to answer. She rounds back onto Quinn, barreling over to the blonde with a force like an elephant. The entire house shakes as she grabs onto Quinn by the hair and yanks her so close into her face that she can smell her breath. "Who is coming to this house?"

"N-nobody!" Quinn insists, but the grip on her hair tightens, daring her to lie again. Quinn feels her eyes water. It feels like Darlene is trying to pull her hair straight out of her scalp.

"Then who the hell were you on the phone with?"

"My mom!" Quinn gasps. She realizes that it is probably not in her best interest to lie to a woman like Darlene, but she doesn't want to know what either her or Peter will do if they find out that Shelby is on her way to this house. She doesn't want to know what will happen to her and Rachel, and she certainly doesn't want to know what will happen to Shelby. "I'm not a cop. I'm a fucking high school student! I called my mom in Ohio because I thought that it was a good idea to run off and take her to meet her dad, but clearly I was wrong!"

By some miracle, Darlene's grip on her hair actually loosens. A residual throb continues to pound inside of Quinn's skull, made worse when Darlene gives her a hard shove back into the wall, using the leverage she has on her hair.

"Do you have a wallet?" the woman asks the blonde.

"What?"

"What do they teach you in that high school, girl? You're not very smart." Darlene smirks at Quinn slyly, tapping on the center of her forehead like she is searching for signs of a brain. Quinn has to physically resist the urge to swat her finger away. "I said give me your wallet."

Quinn swallows, but digs through her back pocket, performing a miraculous sleight of hand to remove her wallet and replace it with the pipe. She has never been more grateful for the year that Coach Sylvester insisted their Cheerios routine contained magic tricks. It had been hell at the time. Now, it might just save her life.

"Lucy Quinn Fabray…" The woman reads her name off of her license, rolling the small, plastic card inside of her fingers like she is trying to determine its authenticity. "Born July 17, 1994. 786 Elm St. Lima, Ohio. 5'4. Brown eyes."

Quinn swallows as the woman studies her license and commits these vital details about her life to memory, but she knows she can't say anything, so she watches the woman inspect her high school ID next before pulling out a credit card.

"Platinum…" Darlene whistles low with approval. "Is daddy rich, Lucy?"

"Very…" Quinn breathes. She finds that just so long as this woman calls her by a name she hasn't gone by since she was a kid, she can pretend like it isn't her in this situation at all. Then again, Lucy never would have gotten herself here. Lucy never would have suggested something so stupid to Rachel at all.

"I guess it's better than having Peter for a daddy, huh?" she laughs slightly and calls over her shoulder to Rachel. The brunette only swallows. Luckily, Darlene doesn't seem to be looking for a response. Instead, she merely slips the credit card back into the wallet and puts the whole thing in her pocket. "I guess he won't be missing that."

She turns her back on Quinn. The blonde is just starting to wonder what is going to happen next when she gets her answer.

"I've got no use for the girl, Joe," she waves. She doesn't look back at Quinn once. "Take her out back and get rid of her."

"No!"

Rachel's reaction is swift and immediate. Quinn is still trying to work out what Darlene means by _get rid of her_. She knows. In the back of her mind, she certainly knows, but she doesn't want to believe it.

After a couple of seconds, it clicks. Her heart is pounding, but she knows that it would not be in her best interest to panic.

She blocks out Rachel pleading for mercy for her. The brunette tries to rush to Quinn, but they are on opposite sides of the room and there is a sadistic psychopath standing between them. She doesn't make it very far before Peter grabs onto Rachel by the back of her shirt and pulls her back, keeping her away.

Quinn focuses on Rachel. She imagines how calm she feels every time Rachel touches her, how she wishes she had given in when she had kissed her last night now that she knows that it might have been her only opportunity to do it. If she can pretend that the reason that she is turning into a puddle right now is because of Rachel, and not because this might be the end for her, then she might be able to go down with at least a little bit of dignity.

She watches this man, Joe, approach her. She is a death row inmate and he is the executioner. She stares at him, wondering if this oaf is really going to be the last thing that she ever sees. She used to think that she was invincible. Most kids her age think this, she reasons, and more times than not, they have to figure out the lesson that they are not the hard way, but this seems elaborate, even for her.

"Please, I'll do whatever you want me to, just leave her alone!"

Rachel is panicking. She doesn't even hear the words that are coming out of her mouth right now, her heart is beating so fast inside of her ears. Her eyes are wide and panicked as she looks around at the people in the room, begging somebody to do something. Nobody is moving. She is yelling to a roomful of deaf ears.

She is surprised, if not a little impressed that Quinn is a portrait of calm. It is miraculous to her. Rachel is starting to learn that Quinn was always the strong one between them. The thing is, Rachel doesn't know if she can be the one tough enough to get them both out of here.

Joe reaches out and Quinn braces herself for a fight. She presses herself as hard into the wall as she can get and grips the pipe with her broken hand, because it is her dominant one, and she knows that the pain will be nothing compared to what will happen to her if she doesn't give it her best shot.

She waits until he is close enough to hit, not wanting to expose her cards too quickly. When the opportunity presents itself, she does not hesitate this time. In one fluid motion, she pulls the pipe out of her back pocket and swings. She finds her mark easily, landing a solid blow along the underside of the man's jaw.

It is a perfect hit. The man takes a lumbering step backwards, dazed. His eyes cross as blood shoots out like a geyser from his mouth. A humbling silence follows. Quinn tries to think back to the fight that her and Rachel had gotten in with The Skanks and remembers how loud it had been. The utterances of surprise, the shouts of encouragement, even the crowd placing bets. Now, there is only silence.

Quinn doesn't know how to interpret this but doesn't stick around to find out. While Joe is struggling to get his footing down, Quinn advances, ready to deliver another blow that will hopefully take him out for good. She barely makes it a step before she hears somebody call out to her.

"Lucy…"

Darlene still thinks that that is her name. At first, it had made things easier for Quinn. Now, it is starting to irritate her. She freezes with the pipe raised high above her head, ready to strike and hates that the woman had managed to make her hesitate, but she does. There is an eeriness about the calm in her voice. She sounds unfazed, even though Quinn had just attacked one of her henchmen.

Turning, Quinn immediately realizes why. She has Rachel pressed tight into her. The brunette's back is against her chest. One arm is draped across Rachel's front, holding her in place. The other is pointing the gun to her head. In her moment of victory, Quinn had forgotten all about that damn gun.

Quinn swallows, her eyes falling, conflicted. She stares at Rachel. The brunette's eyes are closed, and her body is trembling. She is so tiny compared to Darlene. The woman could snap Rachel in half with her bare hands if she wanted to, and Quinn knows that she wouldn't hesitate to do so.

"Drop the pipe."

"Don't do it, Quinn!" Rachel insists, but the only thing that her efforts give her is to have Darlene press the business end of her pistol even harder into Rachel's temple. It digs in with a bruising force. The whimper of pain that Rachel lets escape from her mouth is silenced only by the clatter of metal against hardwood as Quinn lets the pipe slip from her fingers and fall to the ground.

"You know, I think I underestimated you," Darlene tells Quinn. She sounds almost impressed as she takes a step closer towards Quinn. She doesn't let go of Rachel, she merely drags her along for the ride. "You're a feisty one. Maybe I could use you after all."

Quinn doesn't know how to respond to that. She doesn't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. At the very least, she seems to have brought herself at least a couple more precious minutes on this Earth. She tries to use them to come up with another plan to escape, but her brain produces nothing. She sees no way out of this.

Caught in a stare down with Darlene, Quinn doesn't even notice Joe straighten himself out until he is spitting a wad of congealed blood at Quinn's feet. The man kicks the pipe further down the hall, completely out of Quinn's reach. She catches only a fleeting glimpse of the rage in his eyes before the back of his hand rears back and connects hard with her mouth.

The blow is stunning, and it sends Quinn down hard on one knee. She feels her mouth fill with blood. A second later, she tastes it on her tongue and has to resist the urge to gag.

"Alright, everybody just calm down." Darlene is the type who everybody listens to when she talks. Now is no exception. She hovers over Quinn, taking in the blood on the blonde's chin and the cast on her hand, and she smirks at her like she had just won the lottery.

"I might just have plans for you yet," she tells Quinn, and the blonde tries her hardest not to show how much that terrifies her. "Now, let's everybody take a breath and we'll figure out what to do about all of this."

* * *

Shelby almost misses the turn that the GPS tells her to take into Foster because it is nothing more than a small dirt road leading off the highway. In the pitch blackness, she practically drives past it without second thought, making it just in time.

Her phone signal had gone out roughly fifteen minutes ago. The only luck she had is that she managed to actually place an emergency call. She was on the phone with the dispatcher when her service crackled and then cut out completely. She hopes she had given them enough, but the only thing she'd managed was a vague paraphrasing of the directions Quinn had given her. It is far from an exact address, but she is assured that it is a location familiar to the police. This does not make Shelby feel any better.

Shelby hopes that they are close behind her. Admittedly, she had put her foot down on the gas pedal after hanging up with Quinn. She had hit speeds she had no idea her Range Rover could even go. A part of her was hoping that she would get pulled over, but the roads were quiet, like they are now. Shelby doesn't see a soul, late on a weeknight in a factory town that closes almost as early as it opens.

Shelby pulls her Ranger to a slow roll down the gravel path of the dark road and squeezes her eyes closed. She wonders if she is up to the responsibility of doing this all on her own. She realizes that she might not have a choice.

She follows her GPS to Peter's house because Quinn's instructions had started there. She isn't expecting to see them but is still terribly disappointed that she doesn't. She types the house number that Quinn had given her into her GPS, hoping for at least a lead, but her service is still shot, and she gets nowhere.

Shelby needs a moment to think. She needs a moment to breath. She steps out of her car and into the night, closing her eyes against the darkness. She looks out at the trailer that she has found at Peter's address. It is a stunning fall from grace from the mansion that he used to live in back in Lima. Shelby can still remember climbing up the garden wall to sneak into his upstairs bedroom. She hasn't seen him since being that girl, eighteen years ago…

The idea of seeing him again used to keep her up at night. She wondered a lot about what she would do if she did, but she hasn't thought about that in at least a decade. If she had, then maybe she would have been better prepared for this.

She looks at Quinn's empty car, parked just a few feet in front of hers and feels something inside of her stomach change. She wants to scream. She wants to scream for the stupidity of those girls for getting in a car with a stranger they knew was potentially dangerous. She wants to scream at herself for not telling Rachel the truth when she'd had the opportunity. She wants to scream at Peter for continuously putting her in these kinds of situations.

When she remembers that she is the only human being for miles of this place, she does just that.

Shelby bends forward at the waist and screams as loud as her lungs will allow. Thanks to years of singing, it is _loud_. She screams until her throat goes raw and tears blister at the corners of her eyes. She screams until she is out of breath. She screams until her voice scratches and fades and the swelling in her vocal cords forces her to falter into silence.

After she is done, she stands herself upright. In the absence of her yelling, the only sounds left are those of the night as well as a dog barking furiously from somewhere inside of the trailer thanks to the commotion she just made.

With her back heaving, Shelby goes back to her car. She had wasted a solid thirty seconds losing control. She knows that she needed it, but also knows that she cannot afford to waste any more time.

She gets back into her car and immediately starts to get to work on Quinn's instructions. She wonders what she will find when she gets there and begs herself not to think about what she will do if she is already too late.

She drives around for nearly five minutes and quickly realizes that she is moving in circles. She hadn't had a good handle on the instructions that Quinn had given her even while she had been listening to them, and her emotions certainly aren't helping. The more lost she finds herself, the more frazzled she gets. She circles around the town until she is practically in tears.

She tries her GPS again. Still no service. She is seconds away from throwing the useless thing out the window when she spots a man standing outside the one bar in town, struggling to light a cigarette against the windy night.

"Excuse me!" Shelby calls to him from the driver's seat, rolling down her window as she skids to a stop in front of him so abruptly that he jumps back, like he is afraid that she is going to hit him. "I'm wondering if you can help me. I'm looking for a house."

The man raises an eyebrow, rendered temporarily mute by this unusual woman in an unusual car asking unusual questions. It is rare that they get outsiders to this small town, let alone three of them in one night.

Shelby takes his silence as compliancy and gives this man the description of the house to the best of her ability having never seen it before. She isn't even halfway through her description when she sees a spark of realization ignite inside of the man's eyes. His face falls. Shelby doesn't know how to interpret that.

"I'd avoid that place if I were you," he warns. His voice carries a thick accent. He is looking at Shelby suspiciously, but reasons that nobody asking strangers for directions to such a house would be travelling there as customers. He spits a thick loogy at his feet when he is finished talking and Shelby has to resist the urge to cringe.

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just looking for my daughter and her friend," Shelby explains quickly.

The man looks at her sympathetically and takes another steep drag of his cigarette.

"A little brunette girl?" he asks, much to Shelby's surprise. "Running around with a blonde?"

"You've seen them?" Shelby asks, trying and failing not to get her hopes up.

"They stopped by the bar a few hours ago for dinner," the man shrugs. "Thought they looked lost, but if they went there… I hate to tell a mother how to do her job, but you might already be too late."

"Well I've got to try something," Shelby sighs.

The man shrugs, reasoning that Shelby has a point. He gives her the directions she is looking for and Shelby utters a quick word of thanks, not hesitating before shifting her car back into drive.

"Hey lady," the man calls her back before she can speed off into the night. When she turns over her shoulder to look at him, she notices that his face is somber. "You wouldn't want to just show up to that place," he warns. "I wouldn't go without backup."

Shelby takes a deep breath. She thinks about the police, who she must have called nearly thirty minutes ago by now and hopes that they make it soon enough that Shelby doesn't have to take these people on all on her own. She thinks about Rachel and about Quinn and how tenacious both girls can be when prompted, and she hopes that that will be enough to carry them this far.

"I do have backup," she says, and she hopes that she is not lying. The foundation of her title as a mother depends on that statement, and she does not want to find out what the consequences will be for any of them, to have her lose that.

* * *

 _Mid-March and Shelby is starting to get restless._

 _The final weeks of winter have been hanging on tight and have brought a cold sense of misery with them. The closer that Shelby gets to graduation day, the longer the days seen to be dragging on._

 _She hasn't had a lot to look forward to lately. After the holiday break, the span of cold air and perpetual boredom always seems to last forever. This year, it is particularly rough._

 _While her classmates are putting the finishing touches on their college applications, or are busy securing jobs in the family business, Shelby is saving every penny she can for New York. Everybody around her seems to have their own opinion on this matter, from her classmates down to her own parents._

 _They sneer at her lack of a backup plan as she embarks on a notoriously ruthless profession. Even her own friends seem to be losing confidence in her. Just yesterday, the entire student government, for which she was president, had staged an intervention. They told her that she was wasting her potential by not going to college. She isn't sure how good of a job she did convincing them that she would be wasting her potential by not trying her luck in New York. Then, after she had left, she heard a group of kids wagering bets on how long it would be before she came crawling back to Lima._

 _The only person who did believe in her, it seemed, was her boyfriend of just over a year, Peter. He had moved here from – of all places – New York early last year. The two have been inseparable ever since._

 _Shelby was in love with him. She was head-over-heels infatuated by the dark-haired boy with the grace and culture and confidence of somebody much beyond his years. She loved him, and she knew that Peter loved her in return. Nobody else has ever made her heart flutter so hard inside of her chest that it hurt every time he was too close to her. When he was away, the pain was even worse._

 _Shelby is putting the finishing touches on her red lipstick when she hears the honk of a horn that she had been expecting ring out from the street. She hasn't had a lot to look forward to in recent months, but the Winter Formal was something that everybody had been counting down the days for ever since the beginning of the school year._

 _She checks herself over in her mirror one last time, making sure everything is perfect. She flattens her palms against her sleek black dress, smoothing any wrinkles before applying one last coat of spray to her violently teased hair, ensuring that it will stay rigidly in place. She has been planning this evening for so long. She needs everything to be perfect. Nights like this were just the beginning of the rest of her life spent with Peter. These were the stories that she would be telling their children one day._

 _Outside of the house, she finds Peter the portrait of a gentleman as always._

 _He is waiting outside of the car for her, pressed up against the hood, the passenger side door already opened like a chariot. His father had lent him the Rolls Royce for the evening. Shelby knew that was a big deal. Peter often told her that his father loved his car more than he loved his family. Shelby knew that he was probably exaggerating, but the comparison got the point across._

 _Peter is wearing a white suit and tie with a black undershirt. It compliments Shelby's dress perfectly. He looks stunning._

 _When he greets her, he grips the tip of her hand, delicately like she is made of glass and kisses it softly before slipping her corsage around her wrist. He guides her inside of the car. He doesn't let go of her hand until she is safely inside of her seat._

 _The dance is everything that Shelby hoped it would be. The high school gymnasium-turned ballroom that Shelby and the rest of the student government had slaved over for weeks looks like a dream. Students are enjoying themselves from the start, but everybody knows that their nights are only beginning._

 _Whispers of an afterparty start up before the DJ even plays the first song. Halfway through the dance, everybody knows which table to get their punch at if they wanted something a little extra to lighten the mood._

 _The dance ends at ten, but that is only when the night really gets started._

 _Students stumble to their cars so that they can make their way across town towards the host's house. In the back of Shelby's mind, she thinks that it will be a miracle if everybody makes it alive, they are already so drunk, but she has been drinking too, and the buzz inside of her head blocks out any feeling of dread that might have told her this party might not be such a good idea._

 _Shelby has never been to a house party like this before. True, the party scene wasn't exactly her thing. She had showed face at a few over the years, but she isn't a big drinker and therefore, never really stuck around. Still, she has never seen a party where everybody was dressed up in their best suits and dresses before._

 _As the night grows later, she realizes quickly why._

 _Like an unwritten law of physics, as the night proceeds, the patrons grow sloppier. Alcohol stains the fronts of hundred-dollar dresses and rented tuxedos. Shelby catches one boy passed out in the corner in a puddle of what she hopes is beer, and a girl who throws up down the front of her dress. Eventually, Shelby has to sneak away for some air and to clean up._

 _She hasn't seen Peter in almost an hour. This isn't entirely unusual. Peter was a very popular person at their school compared to her, who wasn't so much popular as she was intense and actively involved in just about every club offered at the school. People liked Peter because he was charismatic and friendly. They liked Shelby merely because she was there._

 _She finds a bedroom upstairs with a vanity and parks herself in front of it as she begins to fix her makeup and hair. She is just about ready to leave. She is exhausted, and drunker than she would like to admit, and after everything she had seen downstairs, feels like she really needs to take a shower. It is getting late anyway, and Shelby would like to save at least a few minutes before her curfew to be alone with her boyfriend for the first time all night…_

 _She tries to fix her mascara, but flinches when she pokes herself hard in the eye. She isn't exactly sloppy drunk like some of the people downstairs are, but she is certainly just past the cusp of buzzed. She doesn't like this feeling. Shelby Corcoran is such a control freak that when she can't even find control over her own body, she grows irritated._

 _Sighing, she throws the mascara wand down against the desk and looks at herself in the mirror. She supposes that she doesn't look that bad, and she knows that Peter has been drinking too. He probably wouldn't notice the difference. Guys never noticed stuff like that. Shelby really just wanted everything to be perfect tonight._

 _Shelby hears a commotion coming from the hallway, a single body stumbling back and forth into the walls like a pinball struggling to move in a straight line. She turns over her shoulder, stunned to see her own boyfriend stumble past the room she is in._

 _"Peter!" Shelby gasps, shocked to see him in this state. An hour ago, he was certainly drunk, but he wasn't sloppy. Now, his hair, which had been greased back for the dance is standing on all ends. He had lost his tie and his jacket, and his shirt is untucked and wrinkled. When Shelby looks him in the eyes, she notices that they are glazed over and slightly crossed. A glow has formed high inside of his cheeks. She has never seen him so drunk._

 _"What happened?" she asks him. She is feeling remarkably sober all of a sudden as she grabs her boyfriend by the wrist and guides him to the bed to sit down._

 _"I just took a few shots," he shrugs."Have you ever had bourbon, Shelby?"_

 _Shelby frowns. Bourbon was her father's drink of choice. It made him sloppy, too. He was also a nasty bourbon drinker. At least Peter seemed to be keeping his personality about him._

 _She doesn't answer him, but he doesn't seem to notice._ _His face falls._ _Shelby thinks that she sees a twinge of green flush inside of his cheeks and for a moment, she is afraid that he is going to throw up, but all he does is burp loudly before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand._

 _He looks up at Shelby. His pupils are alarmingly dilated. Swallowing, Shelby wonders if it really is only a few shots that he had taken, or if there is something more to his story. She figures that that would be a conversation better saved for the morning and doesn't mention it._

 _"Oh, Peter…" Shelby breathes, trying and failing to mask her disappointment. "Maybe we should find somebody to drive us home. Where are your car keys?"_

 _"It's still early, Shelby!" the boy laments. His voice is terribly slurred as he falls onto his back against the mattress. He hiccups loudly and then laughs at the sound that comes out of his own throat._

 _"Peter, it's almost two o'clock in the morning," Shelby reminds him, shaking her head gently._

 _"That's plenty of time!" he insists. Shelby cocks an eyebrow at him._

 _"For what?" she asks. She watches as Peter smirks at her. It is a look that she is pretty sure is meant to be seductive, but he is so drunk that she cannot be sure. He uses the leverage of her hand, still on his wrist, and pulls her onto the mattress with him so that she falls down pressed hard into his side._

 _Shelby feels Peter's disheveled hair tickle the underside of her chin as he dives in and plants hard kisses against her neck that miss the mark of her pulse point every time. The two of them have been sleeping with each other since just after Christmas. Normally, he was the portrait of romanticism. Now, he is fumbling like this is his first time. Shelby laughs a little bit at his determination, but pushes him away because in his current state, she feels like she is taking advantage of him._

 _"Okay, hot-shot, I think you've had a little too much to drink," she tells him. She presses a hand into his chest and pushes him away before sitting up. Peter follows her with a sly grin. Shelby sighs. It looks like getting Peter out of this house and into this car was going to be a lot harder than she was hoping for._

 _"And I think that you_ haven't _had enough," he challenges, attacking her neck again. He crawls on top of her, securing her hips to the bed with his knees. The ghost of amusement leaves Shelby's face immediately. Now, she is only starting to get annoyed._

 _"Come on Peter, I have to go home and so do you."_

 _"We'll be quick, I promise." He breathes hard into her neck as his hands start to wander, searching for the zipper of her dress. When he doesn't find it, she feels him give up and start to work to hike her dress up her thighs._

 _"No, Peter, come on, get off me." Shelby bucks her hips, trying to knock the boy off of her. He is drunk enough that he does lose his balance. He stumbles and rolls off Shelby on his back against the mattress besides her._

 _He doesn't move, and for a moment Shelby thinks that he might have finally passed out drunk. She wonders how she is going to carry him down the stairs and to the car. She is just thinking about going downstairs and asking some of his friends to come up here to carry him when he rolls over onto his side and looks at Shelby with an expression on his face that makes her recoil._

 _"You're my girlfriend!" he snaps at her sharply. His entire voice has changed. It is deep and angry and Shelby notices that he isn't even slurring anymore. His face is still drunk, but beyond that, there is something that terrifies Shelby. "You've never said no to me before. You don't get to say no to me ever!"_

 _He has never spoken to her like that before. Shelby is still trying to recover from hearing it when he reaches out and grabs her by the wrists, pinning her to the bed with a surprising strength for his state of mind._

 _Shelby feels a sob form inside of the back of her throat, but she is so afraid that it never makes its way out of her mouth. She feels paralyzed. She used to welcome Peter's touch. Now, she feels his hands on her skin and it feels like he is physically burning her._

 _She attempts a feeble protest. Her heart is fluttering wildly. She knows that Peter feels it. He mistakes it for desire and mutters a comment about it before pushing her further into the mattress._

 _Shelby cannot manage a single word after that. She falls limp in her fear and lets Peter do what he pleases to her body._

 _Is he right? Does this mean that she does want this? After all, they are dating, and she has always welcomed him before. It's not like they have never slept with each other, and she had been drinking. Maybe she didn't know what she wanted. So what makes this any different?_

 _Shelby tries desperately to rationalize this inside of her head, but the more she tries to convince herself, the more she knows that everything between her and Peter is changing here tonight._

 _And, more likely than not, it will stay that way forever._

* * *

Despite her confidence, Shelby pulls in front of the house with the spray-painted number placard out front, just as Quinn had described it and feels a sense of dread flood her. There is nobody here. She sees no police, no Quinn, no Rachel, nobody. She is on her own.

The fog has been creeping in since the sun went down. By now, it blankets the town. The flatlands fill in with it. Shelby's range of vision is so obscured that the only thing she can see of the house at the other end of the driveway are the pinpricks of light coming from the windows.

Shelby parks her car on the side of the road, keeping it tucked deep inside of the bushes. She remembers lamenting that she wanted the white Range Rover when the booster parents of Vocal Adrenaline had handed it over as a gift. Now, she is grateful for the more inconspicuous color.

Hoping that the police are not terribly far behind her, Shelby stays close to the shadows and starts to slowly edge her way up the long driveway. She knew that it would be nothing less than stupid to believe that she can take on this challenge by herself, but she needed to see that Rachel and Quinn were okay. She had waited long enough.

The woman walks on tiptoes. In her heightened sense of alertness, she gets spooked by every gust of wind or crinkle of leaves underneath her feet. The hairs are prickling up the back of her neck. She cannot shake the feeling that somebody is sneaking up behind her.

When a loud crack slices through the silence, Shelby is not expecting it.

It travels over the fog and strikes her with the force of a punch. Her ears start to ring. Instinctively, she hits the ground. Trying to make herself as small as possible, she flattens herself stomach first into the dirt and decaying leaves. That was a gunshot. Shelby doesn't have a lot of experience in the area, but she had still grown up in rural Ohio. She knows the sound of a gun when she hears it.

Her heart is hammering inside of her chest. It echoes inside of her brain with a numbing force as she brings her hands up and rubs them all over her body, searching for the telltale feeling of warm blood slipping between her fingers. Her adrenaline is too high for her to feel any pain. If she was shot, she wouldn't even know it otherwise.

Somebody must have spotted her coming. Or maybe they knew to look for her and she had paid for not expecting them while they had most certainly been expecting her.

She thinks about who will take care of Beth when she is gone. What about Rachel and Quinn? Will the police get to them in time, or were they doomed to suffer a similar fate?

It is only after all of these worst-case-scenarios had crossed her mind that the blood stops rushing inside of her head long enough for her to actually think. She realizes with a sense of relief and a hint of embarrassment for her dramatics, that she is not shot at all.

Her ears are still ringing but through that, she can tell that the night has fallen silent again. The only thing that she can hear now is her own panting as she sits up amidst the brush and tries to stop shaking.

The sound had come from inside of the house. _She_ hadn't been spotted. _She_ hadn't been shot. But _somebody_ had been, and Shelby needs to know who.

She picks herself up on trembling feet. She scrambles the last several meters towards the house, not bothering with silence and secrecy anymore. She is done being quiet. She is done being subtle. She is done waiting for the police, who seem to have lost any sense of urgency in the unabashedly bias view that anybody who stumbles into a house like this voluntarily deserves what they get.

Shelby is the only one left for them. Eighteen years ago, she had made a promise to herself and to her daughter that Peter Gabbanelli would never lay a hand on them ever again. She owes it to Rachel to keep that promise. She has already hurt that girl so much more than she ever wanted to. Now, she can only hope that she is not too late to try to rectify all of the mistakes that she has been making for the last eighteen years.


	14. Chapter 14

**Thanks everybody for your patience waiting for this chapter! I am a nursing student so during the school year I don't do much other than homework and cry. I will try my hardest to keep them coming quickly, but even if it is slow they will keep coming.**

 **As always thanks to everybody for sticking this one out with me. I always appreciate all the comments and suggestions and I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for all the cliffhangers but they're mostly too good to pass up!**

 **Until next time!**

* * *

 **Chapter 14** **:**

They're locked in a room alone together while the company they somehow found themselves keeping discusses their fate. It seems unfair that they apparently don't even have an opinion.

It is the best-case scenario for the girls, they reason, because it means that their captors have as little of an idea about what to do next as Quinn and Rachel do. It buys the people who are trying to hurt them time, but it buys them some time to counter it as well.

The second that the door is shut, Quinn is searching for a way out. She runs to the window, but it looks like it has been blown out for ages. It has been replaced with a rotting piece of plywood. When Quinn tries to pry it off the frame, she finds that it has been nailed firmly into place from the outside. She gives it a few firm shoves with her shoulder, but it is no use. She doesn't dare try any harder, afraid if Darlene and her gang of cronies outside hears her trying to escape, it will only end badly for them.

There is no way out of here. Quinn supposes that it is her own fault for thinking that it could ever be so easy.

"What kind of drug dealers are these?" she hisses, mostly to herself through clenched teeth. "They can't even afford to replace the windows."

"They wouldn't put us in here if they thought that we could get out, Quinn!" Rachel argues loudly. Her voice is high pitched, her syllables rushed in an expression of the panic that is increasingly building inside of her chest.

Rachel isn't stupid. Well, she considers that she might be for getting herself into this situation in the first place, but she isn't stupid enough not to know how things like this work. She knows that children get snatched all the time walking home from school or even straight out of their open bedroom windows in the middle of the night. She knows that kids called wanted ads they saw on telephone poles looking for summer jobs and go for interviews never to be heard from again. She knows that people could become desperate enough to sell their own child into a drug ring without even blinking.

These things are not as uncommon as people think. They happen all the time. Every day.

"She's going to freaking kill us," Rachel pants, her breath heavy and high in her chest as she starts to pace frantically back and forth across the room. Her eyes are fixed, pupils dilated as she searches for a way out that never comes.

"Calm down Rachel. Nobody is going to kill us." Quinn sighs, watching the girl in front of her grow increasingly frantic. Of course, she is not sure that she even believes herself, but she knows that they can't afford to have the both of them losing their cool at the same time. If that is the case, they might as well dig their own graves. At least one of them has to be level-headed at any given moment. Quinn guesses that it is her turn right now.

"I've seen documentaries on this stuff, Quinn!" Rachel argues. When she turns to face the blonde, her face is rabid. "They're gonna load us up with drugs so that our brains turn to mush and then cut off our fingers if we don't listen and mail them to our parents in tiny boxes. They're gonna make us deliver their drugs and sell us to creepy old men with weird accents and then, when we're all dried up, they're gonna kill us!"

"Okay, first of all, you need to watch less television," Quinn says, trying to reel Rachel back into her because she cannot afford an irrational Rachel Berry right now. "Second, nobody is going to do any of that stuff to us. It wasn't my mom that I called on the phone, Rachel. It was Shelby. She already knew where to find us. She's almost here. She's coming."

"What the hell is Shelby going to do?" Rachel hiccups, still not convinced. "She's going to get killed right next to us!"

Quinn sighs. Rachel is panicking. She is falling apart faster than Quinn can put her back together, and the blonde knows that she needs to find her reset button because she is going to need them both here and now if she is going to get them out of this situation alive.

She knows that there is nothing that she can say that will stop Rachel. She has enough experience with the brunette to know that once she gets going, nothing short of a miracle can stop her. Luckily, Quinn thinks that she might have one of those tucked away for an emergency.

She grabs Rachel by the shoulders, spinning her around so that she is facing Quinn. Before Rachel can even ask her what she is doing, she leans forward and presses her lips hard into Rachel's.

It is hardly romantic. It is hard to the point that it is almost painful, and Rachel's eyes fly open just as soon as she feels Quinn's lips against hers. She looks taken aback by Quinn's actions. At least it seems to have gotten her mind off the possibility of being drugged and murdered. For now.

"What was that for?" Rachel asks just as soon as Quinn pulls away from her. The color is rising back into her cheeks. Her voice is low and quiet, her face relaxing, just as Quinn had intended.

"You looked like you needed it," Quinn shrugs, somehow managing a small smile despite their situation, one that the brunette finds it in herself to return. "Besides, I don't think that I ever paid you back for last night. I wanted to make sure I did just in case I don't get the chance to again."

"I thought you said we aren't getting murdered," Rachel challenges. She is being completely serious, yet somehow, the calm still settles into her stomach and spreads around her like a warm blanket on a cold day.

"We're not," Quinn insists. She sounds much more confident than she is actually feeling. "But you never know what's going to happen. People step in the street and get hit by buses all the time. Besides, I'm afraid that you'll hate me after we get out of here."

"Why would I hate you?" Rachel asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Because this trip was my idea."

"But I'm the one who pushed it this far," Rachel sighs. Taking a deep breath, she reaches down and grabs onto both of Quinn's hand. Her eyes slide down, watching the juncture where their bodies connect as Rachel squeezes hard.

"We're going to be okay," she breathes, and Quinn nods, because when you desperately want to believe that something is true, you can convince yourself of just about anything.

"We will be," Quinn agrees, and reciprocates the strength of Rachel's hands against hers by squeezing just as hard. She keeps Rachel close, understanding that to survive in an unforgiving environment, two is infinitely safer than one, especially when your second is somebody you cared for as much as she cares about Rachel. She can believe that they will be fine. She really can.

"We'll be just fine."

* * *

Quinn doesn't know how long they are left alone in this room for. Five minutes? An hour? She wouldn't know the difference. The only thing that she does know is that she is still pressing against the perimeter looking for a weakness in the foundation that might help her and Rachel escape when she hears the door unlock and rip open.

She scrambles upright from looking for a loose floorboard, trying to look innocent. She is already terrified of what these people might do to her and Rachel. She doesn't need to add to her anxiety by having them find her trying to escape and punish her, or worse Rachel, for that too.

Quinn presses herself hard into the far wall. Instinctively, Rachel molds herself into her side right next to her.

"Get away from the wall. Let me see your hands." Darlene hisses the instruction at the girls. Quinn isn't surprised. Her last surprise act had left Darlene's partner with a busted jaw and her a split lip. She understands why they might be a little wary. The woman didn't seem stupid enough to fall for that twice.

Quinn pulls her empty hands out from behind her back, palms flattened and raised, trying to prove her innocence. Next to her, Rachel mirrors the action.

Darlene nods her head, pleased with the obedience.

"You," she descends on Rachel, skipping the pleasantries and cutting straight to business. She points an ominous finger at the girl and bends it, beckoning her forward. "You're coming with me. Let's go."

Rachel doesn't move at first. Even if she wanted to, she doesn't think that her legs would listen. They are shaking too hard.

She closes her eyes and tries her hardest to channel Quinn. The blonde can't get her out of this one, but maybe if she concentrates hard enough, she could communicate with Quinn telepathically and she can give her some advice about what to do… She closes her eyes and tries to concentrate, but her brain is working so hard trying to get out of this that it can't concentrate on one specific solution. She just feels like she is short-circuiting.

She is about to give up all hope when she feels Quinn's hand reach down and grab onto hers. She feels the blonde offer her a little squeeze and Rachel squeezes back, maintaining the pressure, certain that if she lets go, even by just a fraction, she will lose her.

"Are you deaf?" the woman spits in her face and Rachel realizes that she can hold onto Quinn's hand as tight as she wants to. She is still going to lose her. "I said, you're coming with me."

Rachel swallows heavily, terrified under the narrowing gaze of this woman, who seems to hold all of the power over her. Her heart is beating hard enough inside of her ears that she can't even think straight. Her eyes slide sideways, glancing at Quinn, who is still holding onto her hand so tight that she can't even feel her fingers anymore.

"W-what about Quinn?" she risks asking.

"Your girlfriend is staying here," the woman smirks at the two girls maliciously. Rachel doesn't like what that might mean for either of them. "Don't worry, the boys will take good care of her."

Rachel glances back towards Quinn, noticing that the blonde is trying and failing to mask the fear in her face just as much as she is.

Swallowing, Rachel forces her eyes away from Quinn, still searching for a way out. Her eyes find Peter, who she is certain will not help her, and even though he is looking at her with an expression that might signify regret, that hardly matters if he isn't even going to do anything about it.

This other man, Joe, is looking at Quinn like Christmas has just come early for him. Quinn was going to be left alone with this man, and if Peter was so quick to sell his own daughter out, Rachel doubts very much that he would stand up for Quinn.

"Like hell you're taking Rachel anywhere!"

Quinn is the first one to find her voice and reach her breaking point. She knows that she cannot let Darlene take Rachel anywhere. Separated, they would be defenseless, and who knows if they would ever see each other again. Quinn is not going to lie to herself and pretend like she is not fighting against the idea of being left alone with Darlene's slack-jawed partner too.

Quinn drops Rachel's hand, trying to ignore the lingering emptiness doing so does and steps forward. She is only pretending like she has any control over this situation and everybody in this room knows it.

Darlene takes a step of her own, meeting the feisty blonde in the middle.

She is wearing a cruel smile. For all of her effort, Quinn can tell that she hasn't even put a dent in the woman's nerve. If anything, she is amused by Quinn. She can respect the gusto of the blonde but has come across plenty of people in her time whose grit got them nowhere but killed.

"Do you see this, Blondie?" Darlene asks, waving her pistol in Quinn's face.

Quinn swallows and shrinks backwards. She certainly doesn't appreciate having a gun waved in her face. She also doesn't appreciate that Darlene is using the same nickname the Skanks call her, mostly when they were trying to be patronizing. She looks at Rachel and tries to re-center herself. If Darlene were to shoot her right now, she hardly wants

her last conscious thought before dying to be about The Skanks…

"This means I'm in charge," Darlene continues satisfied by Quinn's submission. "If you want to make things difficult, we can make it difficult."

There is a moment of silence before chaos erupts. Darlene surges forward. She grabs Quinn by the scruff of her neck and presses the barrel of the gun hard into her temple. Quinn squeezes her eyes shut. She is trying to think about all of the things she wishes she had done in her life but never got the chance to but is too busy expecting the punch of a bullet followed by an absolute nothingness.

Before it can come, Quinn feels the gun being withdrawn from the side of her head. She risks cracking her eyes open, just in time to watch the woman swing a forearm as thick as Quinn's waist around so that the gun is trained directly on Rachel.

Quinn feels the panic reignite with a pronounced vigor inside of her chest. She hates that Darlene already knows that if she wants to control Quinn, it isn't by threatening her, but by threatening Rachel.

"Don't hurt her!" the blonde gasps. She is trying not to project the fear in her voice, but she sees the terror in Rachel's eyes and it physically changes something about her. It used to be that Quinn did stupid things because she no longer cared about the cost. Now that she has learned that she has everything to lose in losing Rachel, she realizes that she should have held on so much tighter. "Please, leave her alone. Shoot me! Shoot me instead!"

"You think you're brave, girl?" Darlene taunts the request but seems to be obliging as she turns back onto Quinn, taking the gun with her.

"No!"

Now it is Rachel's turn to argue on her behalf. Darlene growls at the chaotic confusion that these two girls she never wanted anything to do with in the first place are causing. All eyes turn to the brunette, watching her struggle to put her fear back inside of her where it belongs, trying to be stronger for the sake of Quinn.

"I'll do whatever you want," Rachel swallows, her voice stiff. "I'll go with you. Wherever you want me to. Just don't hurt her."

"Smart girl," she is speaking to Rachel, but her eyes never leave Quinn's, like she is trying to silently tell the blonde that it would be in her best interest to follow Rachel's lead.

Quinn's eyes slide towards Rachel. She can't help but to feel slightly disappointed that the brunette had folded so easily, but she recognizes that she probably would have done the same had the roles been reversed.

She watches Rachel's eyebrows slant.

 _I'm sorry._ Her expression screams it. Quinn responds with a stiff nod. There is no need to apologize in an impossible situation.

Rachel's eyes never leave Quinn. She lets the blonde gather her courage, finding that just as long as she is looking at Quinn and nobody else, she can pretend that it is just the two of them here, and that that is how it is going to stay.

Just a couple of minutes ago, it had been Quinn who had been talking _her_ down. Rachel understands now. She realizes that Quinn only said the things she did because when you love somebody, you cannot possibly be the one who brings their entire world crashing down. This is why Rachel takes a deep breath and a step closer towards Darlene, prepared to accept her fate.

She pauses on Quinn only once.

 _It's gonna be okay._

She mouths the words to the blonde, who stiffens. She feels Rachel's earlier panic seep onto her as Rachel somehow manifests her calm. Her blood is racing through her veins, eyes darting desperately for a way out of here, but she comes up empty every time. A failure.

"Why can't we all go together?"

Much to both girls' surprise, it is neither one of them who comes to the other's defense first, but Peter.

The man steps forward nervously. His fingers are pressed together, toying against its mirror twin in a fidgety sort of way that tells the girls that he is uncertain whether or not he should be questioning Darlene's judgment.

"Come on, they're new at this," he continues despite this. "You can't just throw them into it."

"Are you forgetting that you're the one who brought them here in the first place, Peter?" Darlene growls with warning, her teeth clenched and her eyes narrowing. "Going soft on me? Or did you have other plans with these girls?"

"It's not that," Peter shudders visibly. "It's just… I thought they'd go with me. I'd show them the ropes, ease them into it. Come on Darlene, they're just kids."

"Thought you'd have a little father-daughter bonding time?" Darlene taunts him. She snakes an arm possessively around Rachel's shoulder and reels her in so that Rachel's back is pressed up against her chest. Her tone makes it very clear what she thinks of him and his idea. The man hangs his head like a wounded puppy, clearly embarrassed.

"Come on, Peter, you can't honestly tell me that you thought that this would work," Darlene breathes through his silence after a moment, clearly exasperated by the man's actions. "You knew from the beginning that this is how it was going to end. These girls don't belong here. There's nothing we can do with them. Now they know too much."

"P-please…" he stutters, his voice trembling. Rachel and Quinn can tell that Darlene is putting words into his mouth, but they are still not sure whose story to believe. Neither one of them seem credible. Had Peter really been desperate enough to believe that his estranged child could help to rebuild his reputation? Or did he think that bringing her here would be a simple means to get her off his back for good.

Rachel turns to Peter, searching for the right answers. Her eyes are desperate and alight with betrayal.

Deep down, she knows that she shouldn't believe whatever comes out of his mouth, but she had come all this way for answers, and now that it seemed that that quest was going to get her killed, Rachel figured that the least Peter could do was give her the truth.

She had needed so badly for this to work. Even now, she is trying desperately to hold onto the hope that this is all a misunderstanding, that her biological father will somehow manage to surprise her, to save her. Still, that other voice inside of her head is nagging her, reminding her that if she doesn't start to see reason soon, it might very well get her killed.

Peter had brought her here because he is a desperate, pathetic man. He needed Rachel to do his dirty work for his own personal gain. He could care less about what happened to her afterwards and this is the exact sort of place where nobody would think to look twice if she disappeared.

They would call her a bad seed, a troubled youth. They would insist that no teenager wandered voluntarily into a place like this without getting what they deserved. They would put her upbringing under a microscope, criticize her fathers and the lifestyle they kept… She had been trying to piece together her life, but now it seemed like she had only ruined it. Hers and her fathers', and Shelby's, and Quinn… poor Quinn who was probably going to die right alongside her.

"Why are we still pretending?" she hears Darlene ask through her wandering thoughts. "We know how this is going to end, anyway. Why don't we just cut the crap and get right to it."

From her close proximity, Rachel can feel Darlene lift her arm to hold the gun up again.

Rachel closes her eyes, hoping that this woman is bluffing, just as she had done before. The thought just crosses her mind when she hears a shot so loud that it renders her temporarily deaf and makes her senses distort.

Every muscle in her body tenses as she waits for the bullet to strike. She wonders where she will be hit. Would it kill her fast and painless? Or will it be agonizingly slow?

The time between her hearing the gunshot and feeling the bullet seems to be taking forever. She wonders if everybody feels this way when they are about to go, or if she is dead already and had missed the whole thing.

But then, her ears stop ringing, and even with her eyes closed she recognizes that she is still standing here in the middle of the room with Darlene's left arm holding her close into her body and her right draped over her shoulder, pointing the gun in front of the both of them.

She blinks her eyes open cautiously, just in time to see Peter staggering on his feet ahead of her. He is staring at her, his eyes wide and sad. Rachel watches as blood blooms like a poppy against the center of his white t-shirt. Seconds later, his knees give out and he falls into a slick pool of his own blood.

Rachel's jaw dangles loose on its hinges, wide open. She doesn't know how to think. She doesn't know how to feel. She wishes she had let go of her obsessive need for answers, but it was too late. Would anybody believe that she hadn't meant to take all of these people out with her?

"It looks like you're in luck, girl," Darlene grunts, her breath hot inside of Rachel's ear as she lowers the gun back to her side. "I can use you after all. I just got a new opening."

* * *

 _One week later, Shelby is still moving in slow motion. It is like the vicious sadness that surrounds her is acting like a molasses that she has to wade miles through to get back to normal._

 _In the hallways at school, Peter is still there. He is still her boyfriend and he still holds onto her hand like a lifeline, never realizing how hard she trembles every time he is within her sight. At home, he is easier to ignore._

 _In the days that have followed the Winter Formal, Peter has become the model of efficiency. It is like he has gained all of the energy that Shelby can't seem to find. It is the last months of their senior year, and Peter is his father's golden boy, running errands for the man with the obedience of a well-trained dog. At least it keeps him away from her during after-school hours for the most part._

 _He has been so focused and energized lately that Shelby sometimes wonders if she had just imagined him catatonic and blacked-out in that bedroom on Saturday; a monster wearing a mask of her boyfriend. He has become consumed by the possibility of power, and with that power comes an increased fear for Shelby to say anything to him about what happened that night. She wonders if he even remembers it, or if he is just pretending just like she is._

" _Why are you acting so weird?" he finally asks her one Friday afternoon as the couple slows to a halt in front of Peter's locker, gathering the materials he needs for their shared first period homeroom._

 _He leans into Shelby like he is trying to physically observe her deficit. He is so close to her that for the first time, Shelby notices that there is a small ring of gold around the pupils in his otherwise muddy brown eyes._

 _The girl swallows at the idea of being so obvious. She is trying not to be. She doesn't want to be the necessary ingredient in an equation that would make the Peter she had seen just last Saturday re-emerge. She was hoping that if she could be subtle enough, he would just get bored and leave, but that still hasn't happened, and she isn't sure how much longer she can keep up this charade._

 _Shelby pulls her lower lip in between her teeth and bites down hard. She hates that he doesn't know the answer to his own question. She hates even more that she can't tell him._

" _I just didn't sleep well last night," she lies because she is unwilling to be the trigger that might set him off again. She will do whatever he wants or needs and then, the second she graduates, she plans on disappearing. She does not intend on ever setting foot in Lima, Ohio ever again after that. She just has to survive to that point._

" _We can skip homeroom," he suggests, slamming his locker shut. "Take a nap in my car."_

" _No!" Shelby gasps. It is a much more aggressive reaction than she had intended. She watches Peter raise a suspicious eyebrow. He is studying her carefully like he is trying to read an explanation for her bizarre behavior, and Shelby has to physically back away from his intense gaze and look down at the floor._

 _Peter's betrayal had been hard for her. Shelby shudders to think of all of the things that she has done for him, all of the secrets that she's ever told, and the hours wasted thinking that he was the one… She used to want to spend the rest of her life with him. Now she can't even look at him without her stomach rolling over._

" _Are you sure something else isn't going on, Shelby?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest as he props himself up against his locker._

 _Shelby forces a smile and looks up at him. It is hard to imagine that she had once thought it a miracle that two people could ever connect on the same intimate plane as her and Peter had. She had spent her entire life in Lima convinced that she was switched at birth. She was a big fish in a small pond. She wanted to be a big fish in an ocean. She belonged in New York. She belonged in the spotlight. Lima was holding her back._

 _Then, she met Peter, and for the first time, there was somebody else trapped in Lima who didn't belong, and she stopped feeling so alone. Now, she stares at that exact same face and she sees a stranger. She never remembers the loneliness consuming her like this, even before Peter._

 _When she looks down the halls she sees all of the friends she had pushed away, acquaintances who no longer give her the time of day because of her hot-headed attitude. She thought that she had only needed Peter. How wrong she had been._

" _I'm sure," she nods quietly._

" _Because I can't help but feel like you've been avoiding me lately."_

 _Peter reaches out, grabbing Shelby by the wrist. He pulls her in close and squeezes ever-so-slightly, just enough to let her know that he does not appreciate her behavior._

 _The warning is subtle. Nobody walking past them in the halls would think twice about it, and they don't, but Shelby can feel his fingers squeezing tighter and tighter around her arm until it is physically painful._

 _When she first met Peter, Shelby would brush against him on purpose, just to feel his skin against hers. She would make any excuse to be with him. At night, she would close her eyes and imagine them together, dating, married, growing old…_

 _She had hoped and prayed that he would go down on one knee and proclaim his undying love and then, one day, he did._

 _Peter was popular. He was the epitome of cool while Shelby was a nerdy thespian who talked endlessly about her future endeavors to people who had never, and probably would never leave Western Ohio… She was the smartest girl in her class, but even smart girls could be fools sometimes. She had gotten sucked into a stupid, teenage fantasy life. Now, it felt doomed to define her._

" _I-I haven't been," Shelby insists, so quietly, that even she barely hears herself stutter. Shelby can tell that Peter is not satisfied, but he releases her arm anyway._

" _Let's skip," he suggests. A test._

" _I have a French test next period…"_

" _It's the last few months of our senior year, Shelby," he rolls his eyes. "That stuff doesn't matter anymore."_

 _He reaches out and grabs onto her hand. It is not as hard as he had grabbed her arm earlier, but it is still hard as he starts to steer her towards the school's exit._

 _Shelby digs her heels into the linoleum, but she is too afraid to make a noticeable resistance. She doesn't know what Peter wants so desperately to skip for, but she does know that he is proving that she has absolutely no power against him._

 _And that is the part that really scares her._

* * *

Shelby is panting, sweat clinging to her forehead despite the coolness of the night as she races the remainder of the length up the driveway, towards the sound of a gunshot.

She fights through knee-high grass that looks like it hasn't been mowed in over a year. The landscape is riddled with natural boobytraps; deep divots, patches of sticks and boulders… They slow her down, but at least work to keep her covered as she surges forward, determined, desperate, and just a little bit terrified about what she is about to find.

She is maybe a hundred meters from the front door when it bursts open, shrouding the front lawn in a burst of light that nearly blinds her.

Instinctively, Shelby slams her heels into the ground and ducks being an overgrown nest of bushes, determined not to get caught when she is so close… She crouches down low enough to stay hidden while still being able to see what is happening in front of her.

The light is a miniscule amount coming from the house. It shrouds everything in a shadow so that Shelby cannot make out details, only outlines.

She watches a rather large figure emerge from the door, dragging a much smaller one by what appears to be the back of her neck down the stairs.

Shelby's heart clenches. That has got to be Rachel or Quinn because, for what it's worth, she is putting up a fight. Shelby realizes that the fight is for good reason as she continues to get dragged further down the driveway, towards what appears to be a truck, waiting to take her away.

"Quinn!" she hears the girl yell back into the house, calling desperately for help that never comes as she continues to struggle to pull herself out from under her captor's grip.

Shelby's heart leaps into her throat. She cannot see the girl's face, but that was certainly Rachel's voice. She feels an animal instinct roar inside of her. Her time was running out. She would have to act before Rachel could be put in that truck. She knows that she has maybe seconds.

She is so disappointed with herself. She should have known that this bubble she had disillusioned herself into believing would protect her would eventually burst with devastating results. She had grown ignorant, complacent in the idea that the cruelties of the world could never touch Rachel just so long as she didn't know about them.

She had successfully gotten away from Peter once after a meticulous amount of planning, so what had gone wrong this time? How many people could honestly say that they were smarter at eighteen than they were at thirty six?

Shelby isn't proud to admit it, but she recognizes that she has to. She had waded in denial long enough and the ending had been tragic, but not rectifiable. For now.

It is not her life that is on the line this time. She had tried to warn Rachel, hoping that a few vague, ominous warnings would steer her away, but she still felt responsible towards the idea that not only did Rachel not learn from her mother's mistakes, she also followed them.

Groping along the muddy ground, Shelby looks for anything that might be considered a weapon. She easily finds a stone that is round and heavy and roughly the size of her palm. She picks it up, bouncing it inside of her hand for a moment, praying for a miracle.

Shelby had never been particularly athletic. One might argue that a target standing right in front of her would be out of her range, let alone one this far away. She also considers the fact that she risks hitting Rachel if she misses. Of course, that would be a small price to pay compared to what might happen should her daughter be dragged into that truck…

Shelby closes her eyes, whispering a prayer for a miracle as she draws her arm back and releases the stone, letting it soar high through the air. She might be out of practice with the whole communicating with the divine thing but recognizes that this is a wish too big to mess up. She believes that she is incapable of missing. And she doesn't.

* * *

Rachel Berry has learned a lot about herself tonight.

She has learned that her biggest fear is to be left alone, particularly if it means losing Quinn. She has learned that it is worth it to take other people's advice sometimes, especially when they tell her that her biological father is not worth meeting. She has also learned that she doesn't do particularly well in panic.

She hears her own voice, screaming in protest, but cannot even process that she is speaking. She hears herself call for Quinn, and Quinn call back to her and then she feels Darlene grab onto her and sees Joe grab onto Quinn and Peter is still bleeding on the floor and all she can think about is that she has never seen a person die before.

She is struggling to look over her shoulder as she is pulled towards the front door. She needs one last glimpse of Quinn. She is certain that this is the last time that she will ever see the blonde. She wants to take it all in, despite the anguish on her face.

Quinn disappears from her sight as Darlene throws open the front door and thrusts Rachel into the night.

The clouds have given way to a clear night. It is so dark in this vacant place that what looks like entire galaxies erupt across the sky. Starts speckle it in a way that makes it look like the world is weeping. Rachel recognizes that she knows the feeling well.

Peter's truck is still sitting in the driveway where they had left it, permanently abandoned. A few feet away sits another truck that Rachel hadn't recognized earlier. Darlene is dragging her towards it despite the struggle she continues to put up. Darlene's grip never seems to loosen. Meanwhile, Rachel feels her own energy depleting with every attempt at escape.

Despite the fact that she is winning this battle, Darlene seems to be losing patience with Rachel. The lumbering woman snaps. She uses the leverage that she has on Rachel's shirt collar and spins the girl around, throwing her back so hard into the bed of the truck that it knocks the wind out of her.

"You listen to me, girl," Darlene spits, her hand tightening Rachel's shirt around her neck, practically strangling her. "There are two ways that this is going to end. Either you are going to listen to everything I say, or I will kill you and your little friend right here and leave your bodies on the side of the road for the animals. Do you understand me?"

Rachel purses her lips, too afraid to even breathe. Somehow, she manages a stiff nod and falls limp underneath Darlene's grip, submissive. Through the otherwise darkness, Rachel sees the woman smirk at her, satisfied by her own control.

"Good," she sneers, finally loosening her grip on Rachel's collar so the girl can take a gasping breath, trying to replenish the lost oxygen.

Rachel hunches forward, rubbing her sore neck. She is just thinking that she will not have any other choice but to do as Darlene says when through the corner of her eye, she sees something soaring through the air. She cannot make out what it is through the darkness, but whatever it is, it seems to be heavy, because it hits Darlene in the side of the forehead with a dull thud. Seconds later, the blood begins to flow.

The woman doesn't make a sound except for a small grunt of pain as she presses a palm into her bleeding forehead. Rachel has no idea what just happened, but she realizes in an instant that she is not going to miss her opportunity to take advantage of a seeming sign from God to escape.

She doesn't think about anything else. She just runs.

She is panting from both the mental and physical exhaustion as she sprints down the length of the driveway with breakneck speeds. For all of the things that she is good at, athleticism is certainly pretty low on her list, but she has never been more grateful for her strict elliptical regimen more in her life.

From somewhere behind her, she hears a gunshot. She leaps, expecting a bullet, but when she doesn't feel one, she turns over her shoulder and notices that Darlene is shooting blindly thanks to the blood that is seeping down into her eyes. She is aiming at nothing, just firing blindly into the darkness, hoping to hit something as Rachel turns back around and continues to run.

She hears another gunshot and then another. For what Darlene is lacking in aim, she is trying to make up for by shooting as many bullets as possible, hoping that at least one finds its mark.

Desperation ignites a renowned vigor inside of her chest. She doesn't even notice the pain in her legs or in her lungs as her muscles start to protest against such prolonged exercise.

Rachel hears a fourth shot and then a fifth. She is just starting to wonder how many bullets Darlene has at her disposal when she hears a sixth shot that is accompanied almost instantly by a searing pain that shoots up her arm and knocks her forward. She hits the gravel driveway hard enough that her nose starts to bleed, but adrenaline has kicked into high gear. She doesn't even process the possibility that she may have just been shot. Instead, she performs an impressive summersault and launches herself back to her feet without skipping a beat.

Her arm is throbbing. It feels like somebody has just lit a match against it. She can feel the blood start to billow underneath her sweater, but she is so close. She can't stop now.

She can see the street. She is just starting to think that she is actually going to make it to freedom when she feels a pair of hands reach out from behind a bush and grab onto her, reeling her in.

Her heart leaps into her throat with fear. She tries to scream, but before any noise comes out, a hand presses into her mouth, silencing her. She had been so close. She should have known that Darlene would have people planted all over the place. An operation as large as this one apparently is, she doesn't know why she wasn't expecting security…

She looks over her shoulder, expecting to see what might very well be the last face she ever sees, but she is surprised when she only sees Shelby looking down at her. Her mother is sweaty with dirt and grime covering her face and clothes. She is wearing an expression that is exactly how Rachel feels.

"Shelby!" Rachel gasps when the woman removes her hand from across Rachel's mouth.

Shelby doesn't answer. Instead, she presses her finger against her lips, requesting silence as she peers out from her hiding place.

Darlene is already stumbling to get her bearings and her composure back. She is wiping the blood from her eyes, barreling down the driveway in search of where Rachel had just disappeared to. She is calling her name angrily into the darkness, but even as she does so, she is walking in the opposite direction as where they are hiding so that Rachel is confident she has no idea where she is.

"Are you hurt?" Shelby whispers, only when she is positive she will not be overheard. She takes in the blood underneath Rachel's nose and against her arm and she waits for an answer with a pounding heart. She is certain that she has never been more terrified than she had been in that terrifying second – which, by the way, felt like an eternity – between hearing a gunshot and seeing Rachel fall.

She was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the girl was dead, but miraculously, she had stood right back up and kept on running.

Shelby figures that that had to count for something, but she is still looking over Rachel, searching for a devastating injury that doesn't exist. The only thing that she does find is a tear in Rachel's sweater and a thin layer of flesh that has been removed by a bullet. It is not deep, but in an environment like this, Shelby knows that infection can set in quickly.

She closes her eyes and tries to remind herself that she is lucky that this is the most of her worries. Half a foot to the right and that bullet would have embedded itself straight into Rachel's heart, where Shelby knows it might as well have taken her out too.

"I think it just grazed me," Rachel confirms. It is the best that she could have hoped for, but it still hurts like hell and she is suddenly very aware of all the mud and debris around here, waiting to work its way into her open wound.

Shelby grimaces at her daughter, like she can physically feel her pain, but she knows that it is not pressing enough to be on their immediate list of things to worry about. Instead, Shelby instructs Rachel to duck low beneath the bushes and start to make her way towards the street under cover.

"Rachel, listen to me," Shelby whispers very quickly towards Rachel. Her eyes are wide, serious. This isn't the time or the place to be angry with Rachel, she knows, but she is still daring her not to heed her advice this time around. "My car is right on the other side of those bushes. Go inside. Lock the doors. I'm going to go get Quinn and come right back."

"But-" Rachel starts to argue, even as Shelby is pushing her car keys into the girl's palm, but Shelby stops her before she can even get another word out.

"This is not up for discussion," she warns Rachel. "Stay low. Go towards the street. Get in the car. I'm serious, Rachel. I will get Quinn, but you need to listen to me right now."

Rachel hesitates for just a fraction of a second. She may not have a lot of experience with Shelby, but she is smart enough to know that that is not a tone to be messed with. Instead of arguing, she nods her head once and pulls away from Shelby, heading towards safety while the older woman presses into the danger, still trying to figure out how she is going to face Peter Gabbanelli again after all these years.

* * *

 _Two months pass, and Shelby is quickly realizing just how much can change in such a short span of time._

 _She still hasn't built up the courage to speak with Peter about that night, or even to officially break up with him, but she is busy planning her escape to New York and he seems to be getting the hint that she just doesn't want to be around him._

 _While Shelby is busy planning her future, Peter also seems to be embedding himself into preparing for life after high school. Shelby doesn't know exactly what his job title is, working with his father, but this is a small town with an even smaller high school. She has heard all of the rumors._

 _Need drugs for a weekend party? Go to Peter. Pimply loser wants to lose his virginity before starting college? Go to Peter. The kid in your homeroom owes you money? Go to Peter._

 _There hasn't been much time for the two of them lately, which is why Shelby is surprised when he invites her to an old hangout in the woods the weekend before prom. It is a popular place for kids at William McKinley to go drink and shoot at the empty bottles with their BB guns. In fact, the only reason that Shelby does find herself hiking through the dirt and mud to get there, is because she is certain that there would be other kids in her grade there to stop Peter from doing something stupid._

 _Then again, there had been other kids in her grade at the party that night too…_

 _She doesn't know why she still does this to herself. Actually, she does. When she had started dating Peter, Shelby had swallowed him whole, terrified that there would never be anybody else. She had given him absolutely everything, and the hole that he was leaving in his wake is already starting to do a number on her. Shelby doesn't know that she can physically take any more._

 _There are other people in the woods with them when she gets there. What Shelby hadn't been expecting however, is that they are all girls._

 _Shelby recognizes them. On the other side of town, a small gang of girls has been building a rapid and notorious reputation. They were herded by a girl who looked like what one might expect if an oak tree and a particularly ugly pug had a child. Her name was Darlene Coots, but she preferred to be called_ The Skank _while the girls she recruited from William McKinley went by_ The Skankettes, _which made absolutely no sense to Shelby._

 _As lame as the nickname sounded, Shelby knows enough to understand that they are not a group to be on the wrong side of. When Shelby sees Peter with them, she knows that nothing good can come out of this union._

 _They all approach her when they see Shelby walking towards them like they know she doesn't belong here. They lumber over her, threatening and immediately, she realizes that Peter hasn't told them that she is coming._

 _Had she just walked into some kind of a trap?_

 _"Shelby!" Peter pushes through the girls enthusiastically, greeting her like they're old friends and not a couple in a tumultuous relationship._

 _His eyes are slightly glazed. He's wearing a sloppy smile on his face. For the first time, Shelby notices the tall boy of malt liquor in his hand. He has been drinking again. Instinctively, Shelby rears back. She hardly has forgotten how their last meeting had ended when Peter had been less than sober._

 _"You invited Shelby Corcoran here?" Shelby hears Darlene sneer from afar. She is still poised, ready to attack if need be._

 _"She's my girlfriend, Darlene, get over it." He rolls his eyes, wrapping an arm around Shelby's waist in a way that makes the girl shudder as he steers her towards the girls she silently thinks she's better off not knowing._

 _Darlene's only response is to roll her eyes. She doesn't linger. Instead, she turns back to the homemade target where they have lined up all of their empty bottles, raises her gun, and fires._

 _Shelby jumps at the noise. She has seen plenty of people taking practice shots with BB guns and air soft rifles, but in Darlene's hands looks like a very real pistol to her. There is another shot and another. Each one is accompanied by the bursting of a bottle as a bullet shatters it into a million pieces. She doesn't miss a single shot._

 _"Sorry about her," Peter apologizes. "She's not much of a people person."_

 _"Then what are you doing hanging out with her?"_

 _"I'm just looking for some extra business," Peter shrugs._

 _"From a bunch of girls who are on their sixth year of high school?" Shelby whispers. Normally, she would not be so outright about her opinions on Peter or his business deals, but this one, she feels strongly about. It is hard enough to try to make it through these next few months knowing Peter will be there every step of the way. What is she going to do now that he has Skanks as bodyguards? "Does your father know about this?"_

 _It is an absent comment, but it makes Peter turn on her, feral._

 _"I don't need my father's permission to do anything!" he snaps. He sounds like he is only trying to convince himself. Shelby takes an unconscious step backwards, recognizing the dangerous territory she has just treaded in._

 _"Okay, I'm sorry," she stutters, trying to rectify her mistake. "I just thought you were still learning the ropes."_

 _"You don't know anything about me," Peter accuses, and Shelby recognizes that that might be the most honest thing he has ever said to her._

 _"I'm just saying that everybody knows their reputation, Peter," she reminds him. "I don't want you to get hurt."_

 _If they're being honest, Shelby doesn't particularly care whether he gets hurt or not, but she is in the thick of this somehow too, and if a group of girls with pistols and perfect aim are mad at Peter, chances are, they would be mad at her too._

 _"I know that you care," he finally breathes, his face relaxing. "Why don't we go for a walk? We can talk about it?"_

 _Shelby doesn't particularly want to go anywhere alone in the secluded woods with Peter, but there is something about the metronome of bullets and shattering bottles behind her that is starting to give her a headache, so she follows obediently._

 _"I know that the Skanks are a bit much…" he admits after a moment, only when the sounds of the gunshots have faded with distance enough that they just sound like bottle rockets._

 _"They scare me," Shelby admits. Peter only laughs like her fears are unwarranted, even though Shelby knows better._

 _"They're harmless," he tells her, and then reconsiders. "Mostly."_

 _"That Darlene girl is an animal."_

 _"I won't let them hurt you," he promises. Stopping suddenly, he turns to face Shelby fully. He offers her a familiar smile, the same one that she has been trying to avoid lately as he slides his arms around her waist. He tries to reel her in, but she pulls out of his grip and stumbles backwards._

 _"What is wrong with you?" he scoffs, his face changing from a look of seductive amusement to irritation. "You barely let me touch you anymore. You're supposed to be my girlfriend, Shelby. You barely even talk to me."_

 _Before Shelby can stop herself, she feels tears start to swell inside of her eyes. For a moment, Peter actually looks alarmed by the sudden influx of emotion, but his face hardens over again just as quickly._

 _"I didn't want it!" Shelby feels herself sob before she can stop herself._

 _"What are you talking about?" Peter asks. He takes a step towards her, one which she immediately counters with another step back._

 _"That night. At the party." A hiccup tears through her tears, burning her throat. "I didn't want to have sex, but you made me."_

 _"What are you saying?" he asks, but it is not apologetic. Instead, he is giving Shelby the opportunity to take back everything she just said. But Shelby has been holding onto this for months. Now that it is out in the open, she is hard pressed to stop herself._

 _"You know what I'm saying!" she accuses loudly, the tears flowing down her cheeks. "I said no, Peter! I said no, and you just kept going."_

 _He doesn't seem fazed by her emotions, but his entire demeanor still changes. Shelby can't tell what he is thinking. He is completely unreadable and even more unpredictable, which, in all honesty, is starting to piss Shelby off. She is dealing with a child. A child who apparently doesn't understand the meaning of stop. That would take its toll on a saint._

 _She is remarkably unafraid in her profession, a stark contrast to when she had been holding everything in, but before she can say everything that she is thinking, she sees something flash inside of Peter's eyes and remembers why she had been so scared in the first place._

 _He lunges at her. A large hand reaches out and wraps around Shelby's throat. He is not terribly big, he is hardly taller than her, but he uses all of his strength to shove her backwards by the throat until her back hits the trunk of a tree hard._

 _"You better do yourself a favor and make sure that this is the last time you ever mention this," he warns. "I didn't do anything to you that you didn't ask for. We were both drunk that night. I'm your boyfriend, Shelby. That's how things like this work. It's not like I'd be up here crying if you were the one who jumped on top of me. Do you understand?"_

 _He asks for confirmation, but his hand is still wrapped tight around Shelby's throat so that she cannot answer. For some reason, what sticks out the most is the acknowledgment that he does remember what happened that night. He sounds like he has been waiting for her to bring it up. Somehow, this hurts even more than the hand around her throat._

 _"I asked if you understand?" he repeats when Shelby does not answer. His fingers squeeze even tighter around her throat and he gives her a little shake, letting her know that he does not intend on letting her go until she answers._

 _Somehow, she manages a nod. Her neck is killing her and her chest aches like it is about to explode she is so desperate for oxygen. This hardly hurts more than her pride, however, which feels the most wounded of all._

 _The moment she gives him what he is looking for, he lets go of her. He doesn't even try to catch her as she falls to her knees, groping at her throat and gasping for oxygen._

 _"Keep your rumors to yourself, Shelby," Peter hisses at her while she is still on her hands and knees trying to recover. "Darlene and her group will make sure of it. Maybe I can have her knock some sense into you to remind you."_

 _He doesn't wait for her to respond. Without another word, he turns on his heels, leaving Shelby gasping for breath, alone in the middle of the woods with nothing but his threat to sit on._

* * *

Once Rachel is out of site, following the instructions that Shelby had laid out for her, the mother starts to push back towards the house.

She may have gotten Rachel to a safe place, but she still hasn't seen or heard anything about Quinn and she has hardly forgotten the gunshot she had heard earlier coming from inside of the house.

She moves silently back up the path, laying low in the bushes. She keeps a careful ear out for Darlene, who is still pacing the property, searching for Rachel. She is concentrating so hard on not making any noise that by the time she hears the rustle of leaves behind her, she knows that it is already too late.

Her spine stiffens. The hairs prickle against the back of her threat, recognizing the threat before she turns around and sees a face that she never thought she would ever see again. Darlene Coots, founder of The Skanks and high school dropout. Clearly, time hasn't treated her well.

She is much older looking than Shelby remembers, although that makes sense because she had been left back in school so many times that by the time her and Shelby were in the same grade, rumor was that she was already old enough to legally buy alcohol for her fellow classmates.

Her face is still the same, angry and ugly, except the wiry hair on top of her head is greyer than she remembers and the blood that is flowing from her forehead embeds into the wrinkles in her face from where Shelby had hit her with a rock.

"Shelby Corcoran," the woman clicks her tongue in an expression of her surprise. Shelby can tell that this night has gone as unexpectantly for her as it has for Darlene. "I'll be damned if I thought I would ever see you again."


	15. Chapter 15

**So, first and foremost I want to thank everybody for their patience. I appreciate all the encouraging words and everybody offering to step up and do my homework for me :)**

 **Just a quick note before we get going.** **I'm putting up a warning for this chapter for some strong/harsh language that I went back and forth with using but ultimately decided to keep because it seemed necessary. As always, you can PM me with any comments/concerns.**

* * *

 **Chapter 15** **:**

Rachel forces herself to make her way towards the street like Shelby had ordered, turning over her shoulder only once to watch her mother disappear into the darkness of the brush.

She does not linger, terrified that if she does, she will lose her nerve and that is the last thing that she can afford right now. The danger might be to her back, but to everybody else, it is still very much on the forefront, and Rachel knows that she cannot rest easy until everybody who she knows and loves is safe.

Rachel disappears quietly into the trees that separate the property line from the road. The journey is hardly long, but it proves difficult. Her clothes are already caked with dirt and leaves. Her hair had been down when she walked into Darlene's house earlier, but in the chaos, it is now matted into a rope that settles between her shoulder blades. Twigs and thorns dig into her skin and draw blood as she presses towards the street. Now that her adrenaline is starting to die down, she can feel ever pinch, not to mention the throbbing in her arm.

As if that weren't enough, she steps into a trench of thick mud and loses one of her shoes.

Despite the universe trying everything it can to hold her back, Rachel manages to escape to the other side where she finds Shelby's Range Rover hiding exactly where the woman said it would be. Breathing heavily, she rushes the last couple of steps towards it, staggering unevenly in her excitement, and because she is only wearing one sneaker.

She uses the car key to open the door, terrified that the fob would make the lights flash or worse, set off the alarm and attract Darlene.

She fumbles with the keychain through shaking fingers. It takes her several minutes just to steady herself enough to put the key in the hole and twist but eventually, she manages to get it open.

The inside of the car is pristine, which surprises Rachel seeing how she has seen how sloppy the inside of Shelby's apartment is. The interior is beige and leather and the seats look like they would not appreciate Rachel sitting on them given how much the girl has managed to dirty herself up. She considers the fact that Shelby might be mad at her for creating such a mess, but then remembers that Shelby has a million other reasons to be much angrier with her at the moment. After that, she doesn't consider it again and instead jumps into the driver's seat and closes the door quietly behind her.

From inside the car, there is only silence. The absence of the sounds of the night is alarmingly prominent. The only thing that Rachel can hear now is the sound of her own breathing, and it is starting to give her a headache.

She is panting so hard that the windows start to fog from the inside. She feels like she is suffocating in here. If she doesn't turn this car on and roll down the windows, she is certain that she will die.

She twists the key in the ignition. Luckily, the sound of the engine whirring to life is silent. Thank god for hybrids.

The radio has already been punched off by Shelby. Even with the windows down, the silence continues.

Rachel sits in this darkness for a long time. At least, it feels like a long time. Rachel keeps a poised ear out for a sound of a commotion coming from the direction of the house, or even for another gunshot, but she hears nothing.

Shelby had insisted that the police were on their way, but they still aren't here and how long are they supposed to wait and still expected to be saved? Quinn is still inside of that house, and Shelby too. How long before Darlene gets bored of looking for Rachel and decides to punish Quinn for her disappearance? What if Joe had realized that something was wrong when he heard the gunshots from outside and decide to retaliate by shooting Quinn?

She can't just do nothing. Shelby seems to think that it will be as easy as walking up to that house, grabbing Quinn, and leaving, but Rachel knows that it will not be that simple. She needs to provide a distraction. She needs to give Shelby the opportunity to save Quinn, even if it is at the expense of herself.

Before she even realizes what she is doing, Rachel feels herself sink deeper into the driver's seat. She is a good driver, but her hands are trembling and she's not sure how much control she will have over her feet on the pedals. She ignores the impending sense of dread lingering inside of her gut and pulls the car into drive. She slams her eyes shut, not wanting to see what is going to happen next before she realizes that she still has to see where she is driving and forces them open again.

Rachel leaves the headlights off, determined not to be seen until she wants to be, takes a deep breath, and rolls the Range Rover silently towards the driveway and back to the house, realizing that if Darlene doesn't kill her first, Shelby most definitely will after she realizes that Rachel has defied her orders once again.

* * *

Quinn feels her eyes start to burn as she engages in an intense stare down against the man who is currently separating her from Rachel.

The muscles around her eyes quiver, the world turning blurry as they fill with natural tears, but she refuses to blink, terrified that if she does, the man in front of her will only use it as an excuse to kill her. She refuses to end up on this filthy floor lying next to Peter. He had already failed Rachel. She wasn't going to, too.

She is so engaged in her stare-down, searching for a possible point of weakness in Joe, that when she hears the first gunshots coming from outside, it takes her a moment to process that she had even heard them.

"Sounds like your little girlfriend wasn't smart enough to just shut up and listen."

She hears Joe before she even realizes what he is talking about, and then there are more gunshots and her breath quickens inside of her chest as she struggles not to panic, although it is hard not to. Those were gunshots. And they were a lot of them. A part of Quinn tries to be optimistic, tries to convince herself that Rachel had somehow managed to escape, grab Darlene's gun, figure out how to use it, and shoot her.

The majority of her is telling herself to stop being so naïve.

"Give it up kid," Joe tells her, and it is only then that Quinn notices that tears have sprung up inside of her eyes. "Darlene is the best shot in the state. That girl is as good as dead."

A sob escapes from the back of Quinn's throat despite how hard she tries to stop it. She hates to admit that this man, who seems to be as stupid as he is ugly, is right, but the more she tries to convince herself otherwise, the less she believes even herself.

She has to do something. The longer that she sits here, the more she feels the panic build and blind her. She has to stop. She will be no use to Rachel like this, and she knows that there is still a chance. Maybe Rachel had run away. Maybe Darlene had missed. Or maybe Rachel was hurt, which meant that Quinn needed to be ready to keep her alive long enough to get her the help that she needed…

The blonde takes a deep breath, centering herself. She is running out of time. She can no longer afford to sit here and engage in a staring contest with a low-ranking capo in a white trash heroin ring. She has to get away from him.

She stands her ground, silent and frozen as she tries to come up with a plan. As though the universe is trying to make up for everything that it has put her through tonight, within seconds, Joe turns his back towards Quinn and walks towards the window, trying to see what is happening outside.

Quinn watches him trip over Peter's body on the way. The man on the floor groans, which surprises Quinn seeing how she hasn't seen him move in several minutes and thought him dead. She takes a moment, trying to interpret Peter's survival as a case against Darlene's supposedly flawless aim. That had to be a good sign for Rachel.

Quinn tries to convince herself of this, but she is far too realistic a person to think that these kinds of meaningless statistics hold any credible value. If they did, then Quinn would sacrifice Peter in a heartbeat if it meant Rachel coming back to her okay. Peter is the least of her problems. If it wasn't for him, her and Rachel wouldn't even be in this mess right now. She hardly cares if he lives or dies.

Joe tips the tattered blinds away from the window and peers out into the darkness.

He stares for a long time, searching for any indication of what is happening, but if he sees anything unusual, he makes no indication of it to Quinn.

The blonde realizes that she cannot sit here and wait for Joe to tell her whether or not Rachel is still alive. This is her time. If she is going to escape, it has to happen now.

She rushes forward before she can lose her nerve. If she can capitalize on this element of surprise, she is certain that she will be able to get to the pipe that had been kicked away from her earlier and finish what she started.

She is two or three steps from getting past him before he even notices that she is moving.

She is hyper-focused, staring at the point that she knows she has to reach to be certain of her freedom. She tries to ignore the obvious way that Joe notices her attempted escape. She tries to ignore the roaring sound of disapproval that he makes in response. She tries to ignore him diving to catch her with the understanding that if she can just dodge this one last move, she will be home free…

But she can't ignore the feeling of his hand catching her around the knee on his way down. Her balance falters. She wobbles like a top for a couple of seconds before falling like a tree, hard to the wooden floor.

She feels her forehead bounce hard against the floor. The blow is enough to daze her temporarily. It feels like a car crash, only ten times worse.

Her body floods with a feeling of numbness. It feels like she is being doused with warm water, starting at her head and working her way down to the very tips of her fingers and toes.

For a second, she forgets what she had been running from in the first place. That is until she sees a thick pair of legs approach her and hover, until she hears Joe's voice, distant and fuzzy, cursing at her as he spits at her and gives her a swift kick to her ribs, just for extra measure.

Quinn's first instinct is to scream at the pain rushing through her body, but she is still floating in and out of consciousness and all she does is use the momentum of the kick to roll over onto her back.

It had been a subconscious lack of response, but it seems to work in her favor. Joe loses interest, assuming her to be unconscious, and as voluntary thoughts and movements start to flood back to her, she realizes that she has to capitalize on this fortune.

She stays as still as she possibly can, breathing in short, shallow breaths so that Joe will not even notice the rise and fall of her chest and possibly assume that she is dead.

He seems to be staring for a long time. Quinn isn't sure how much longer she can stay like this. Her head is throbbing and she can feel a little bit of blood trickling from her temple. She is breathing so shallowly trying to fake her own death that her lungs are starting to burn. She is just starting to think that Joe is planning on sitting here until she holds her breath for so long that she ends up killing herself, when he finally loses interest and moves back towards the window to search for any signs of what happened to his partner.

As soon as his back is turned again, Quinn turns back to her quest for escape. She knows that she cannot make a run for it again, she will never make it. She had already failed once, and she had been in peak condition then.

Instead, she utilizes an awkward low-crawl, inching on her back along the floor at a snail's pace so that Joe might not notice the movement through the corner of his eye.

She is only a few feet away from that pipe, and her situation grows desperate with each passing minute. She hasn't missed the fact that the world outside has grown silent, which hardly makes her confident for what Rachel's fate might be if she finally does get to her.

 _No,_ Quinn tells herself. _When_ she finally does get to her.

* * *

Shelby has been in a lot of formidable situations in her life, but she has to say, she has never had a gun pointed at her before.

Her arms are half-raised, a silent message of defeat. She refuses to make any sudden movements. She is not sure if this is the appropriate response to begging for her life, but it seems to be working. Darlene hasn't shot her yet.

"Cute kid you've got, Shelby," Darlene comments. She has been monologuing to Shelby. She thought that that was something that bad guys only did in movies to give the hero a chance to win, but it turns out it is a real thing. And if overpaid actors can survive that, then Shelby knows that she can too. "Stupid as all hell, but cute. She'll make me a lot of money."

Shelby tries and fails to mask a breath that sounds more like a huff. She hardly appreciates Darlene talking about her daughter, especially in this capacity. It now seems even more important than ever before to make sure this woman can never get her hands on Rachel again. Shelby hopes to God that Rachel had listened to her instructions and made it to her car. She hopes even harder that it is not too late for Quinn…

"Am I starting to get under your skin, Shelby?" Darlene taunts her. Shelby thought she was being subtle in her anger, but apparently, her face had shown everything that she was thinking. She tries to re-contort her expression. She certainly doesn't like to hear Darlene talk about her daughter, but she also doesn't want to make her angry enough to start shooting, either. If this woman is anything like she was in high school – and Shelby is inclined to believe that she is – Shelby knows that she will shoot first and ask questions later.

"You know, Peter told me that he had knocked you up. He told me that he told you to get rid of it." Darlene offers her side of the story, taking a step closer towards Shelby, who swallows. She feels torn between wanting to hear this side of her story and wanting to take off running.

"He told me that he wasn't sure if you would listen to his suggestion or not so he offered me some cash to take care of the problem, if you know what I mean. The only problem was that his old man wouldn't cough up the money, said he was too irresponsible with finances. We went to a gas station to coerce the attendant to give me what I needed. Peter got caught. He was always getting caught."

Shelby swallows, but remains silent, afraid that anything she might say will be the wrong thing.

Still, she had never heard this version of events before. She thought that Peter robbing the gas station had to do with his growing arrogance and seeming inability to consider that his actions could ever have any consequences. She never thought that he was looking for the money to be used for a hit against her. Shelby shudders and tries not to think about what would have happened had he not been caught that day eighteen years ago.

"Anyway, he stuck around Lima a little bit longer than he wanted to. He had to go through court, things with his dad, but he was removed from the family business. His father thought he couldn't be trusted. He made his way out here a year or two after graduation and found me. I had already made a bit of a name for myself. Peter came crawling, begging for a job, except by then he was only a fraction of the person he was in high school. If only he didn't use half the supply I gave him, the man would be a millionaire by now. He's a junkie. A liability. That's why I shot him."

"He's dead?" Shelby asks before she can stop herself.

"Who knows," Darlene shrugs, uninterested. "I don't have time to babysit him. I've been busy chasing around your little brat and her friend all night. She's been a real pain in my ass. Peter told me that you gave her up to be raised by some faggots. I wonder if that's why."

Shelby swallows. The crudeness of Darlene's language and the casualness by which she uses it, combined with the intimacy of her knowledge surprises Shelby enough that she answers Darlene despite the understanding that silence might be in her best interest.

"I gave my daughter to two incredible men who loved and cared for her. They were better fathers to Rachel than Peter could have ever dreamed to be."

Shelby makes her claim through a snarl. She had intended to stay silent in front of Darlene, but she finds it harder to keep her mouth shut the longer she lets the woman talk.

"I'm glad I did it," she continues. "I would never be able to live with myself if I had let my daughter grow up to be anything like him. Or you."

"That worked really well for the both of you," Darlene sneers sarcastically. Shelby can see her rolling her eyes from all the way across the driveway, even in the dark. "I guess that some people have to learn the hard way that being noble only ever gets you killed."

Shelby feels her fingers curl into fists as rage pours through her. She wants to tell Darlene that she was going to get to Rachel over her dead body, but she doesn't think Darlene would have any problems with that and she doesn't want to speed anything up.

She wants to kill this woman for everything that she has done to Rachel. Then, she realizes that Darlene has not hurt Rachel nearly as much as she had herself and she feels her fist loosen and fall to her side.

"See?" Darlene sneers at her, picking up on the motion. "Now you're starting to get it," she nods at Shelby, and when she raises her arm up and points the gun a little bit higher towards Shelby's head, the woman realizes that that was the final line that she had to cross before her time was up.

* * *

 _It's been weeks since the incident in the woods, and smartly, Peter has been keeping his distance from Shelby._

 _Despite everything that had happened to her, she feels her confidence start to grow as his shadow retreats from her. She had even managed to submit her last couple of college applications, albeit right at the deadline._

 _The memories of that night have started to fade. Shelby has found that just so long as she doesn't talk about it or even think about it, she can pretend that it never happened. She doesn't think that that is a particularly healthy coping mechanism, but for now, it is working, and that is all she can ask for._

 _She pours her concentration into her auditions. NYADA, Julliard, Tisch, they have all reported interest. She is so busy rehearsing, that she doesn't even notice when her health starts to push back against her._

 _Then, one day, she gets so light-headed underneath the stage lights that she nearly passes out and turns to the library to look up her symptoms. Fatigue. Nausea. Mood swings._

 _They are all signs of stress which Shelby thinks is a reasonable explanation. Then, her mother had gone to the grocery store one day and stopped to ask Shelby if she needed anymore Maxi Pads. That is when Shelby realized that it has been months since she'd even needed one._

 _Tight-lipped, she asked her mother to buy her more because she didn't want to incite any suspicion, but as soon as her mother was gone, she had snuck off, using the spare car to drive two towns over to a drug store where she bought all of the pregnancy tests that she could afford with her cheeks flaming red with embarrassment._

 _Several months ago, Shelby had fallen in love with Peter Gabbanelli, completely and wholly. Later on, in her bathroom, staring down at the two pink lines in the tiny window of the fifth pregnancy test she had taken, she only feels like she is falling down the side of a mountain._

 _The first thing she does is go to Peter's house. Her resolve swells in her anger. She had spent weeks trying to forget what Peter had done to her. Now, the memory of that night has grown to become a part of her. A physical attachment._

 _It is only after she knocks on his front door that the fear starts to come back. How was he going to react? By the time he answers, she goes from feeling like iron to feeling like porcelain. She shatters into a million pieces in front of him._

" _What are you doing here?" he asks her, animosity dripping from his voice, although he invites her inside anyway._

 _She doesn't see his parents, but Darlene is sitting in the den, looking shifty. Her and Peter have been spending a lot of time with each other lately. Shelby doesn't like the idea of it. She especially doesn't like the idea of her being present when she tells Peter what she has to tell him._

" _Can we talk privately?" she whispers, but Darlene must hear, because she snorts with laughter._

" _Don't worry, I'm not trying to steal your man," she tells him. "Our relationship is all business."_

" _You can have him," Shelby spits. Her eyes narrow at the girl who could probably crush her with only one hand. Darlene stares at her, warning her. Shelby doesn't have the time or energy to care._

" _Come on," Peter interferes between the two and grabs onto Shelby's elbow, dragging her to the other side of the large house, far away from Darlene._

 _It is his father's office, she recognizes. The two of them stand silently in the center of it for a long time. Peter goes to the bar cart and pours himself a glass of vodka. He pours Shelby one too, but she doesn't touch it._

" _Are you going to tell me why you just barged into my house and started a fight with a girl who could kill you and hide your body where nobody would ever find it without batting an eye?" he asks after a long sip. His words are cryptic, but his voice is neutral. He could care less what happens to her._

" _I'm pregnant," Shelby blurts. She had decided while driving here that it would be best if she would just come out and say it. Now, she watches Peter freeze mid-sip, narrow his eyes judgmentally. He drains the rest of his drink in one sip, taking his time to respond._

" _Excuse me?" he finally asks, his voice icy. He places the glass down against the table, soft and calm. He is staring at Shelby. His glance is warning, and the girl immediately realizes that he is giving her one last opportunity to take back everything she just said._

" _I-I took a test," Shelby tells him, refusing to quit, but feeling her nerve diminish as Peter takes a tentative step towards her. "I took five, actually."_

" _It's not mine," he tells her defiantly, and he actually has the audacity to look like he believes himself, even though somewhere inside of himself, he has to know that there is no other option._

" _Of course it's yours Peter," Shelby tells him. Her anger is starting to flare again. She feels like she just swallowed a firework. Her insides explode, melt. There is gun powder on her tongue. She grimaces. This boy in front of her is a complete stranger._

 _A complete stranger who also just so happened to be the father of her child._

" _You're the only person I have ever been with, Peter. It must have happened_ that _night."_

 _She has been warned never to mention that again, and the second she does, she realizes why._

 _Shelby watches Peter's eyes flash so red, it nearly blinds her. He reaches out a hand and wraps it around her shoulder, gradually tightening his grip until Shelby is whimpering in pain._

" _I told you that nothing happened that night," he hisses at her through clenched teeth, and then he throws her to the ground where she lands on her hands and knees, wrapping her arm automatically across her stomach, her maternal instinct telling her what to do before her brain even can._

" _You're sick," she gasps, a harsh criticism that only serves to make Peter angrier._

 _He reaches out and latches onto her wrist, twisting it. He bends her arm slowly until the pain is so severe that Shelby's eyes begin to water._

" _You're damn right I'm sick," he tells her, holding her arm in a way that makes Shelby think it won't be long until it gives way and snaps. "I'm sick of you trying to ruin my life at every step because you're too afraid to admit that you're nothing more than a whore!"_

 _Shelby wants to cry, but she is not sure if it is out of anger or humiliation. Maybe both. Either way, she uses these emotions to find the strength to remove herself from Peter's grip. She pulls her wrist out of his hands and shoves him hard away from her. When he tries to lunge back, she is ready. She rears back and slaps Peter so hard across the face that for a moment, the only sound in the room is the gradually fading clap of skin-against-skin._

 _Peter rears back from the force of the blow. He works his jaw back and forth slowly, gently massaging his cheek. He takes his time turning back to Shelby. When he finally does, she realizes what a mistake she had made._

" _Get rid of it," he whispers under his breath just as Shelby starts to fear that he is going to turn on her and really hurt her this time. Still, his voice is so low and dangerous that it feels like he is cutting right through her. "Get rid of it or I will do it myself."_

 _Shelby shrinks underneath his statement. His eyes burn with what he is saying. That is how Shelby knows that, for once in his life, he has every intention of keeping his word._

* * *

Shelby squeezes her eyes closed. If she is about to die here, she doesn't want to see it coming. It will help her believe that she is sacrificing herself for something. It will help her believe that the longer she distracts Darlene out here, the more likely it is that Quinn and Rachel escape to safety.

She has only just accepted her fate when she notices a flash of light, so bright that she notices it even with her eyes closed.

She wonders if she had died without even noticing and is just starting to consider how screwed she is if the bright light at the end of the tunnel is real, when she snaps her eyes open and recognizes the high beams of her very own Range Rover barreling forward over the rough terrain of Darlene's front yard.

By the time the headlights flip on, it is far too late for either her or Darlene to react.

The most that Darlene can do is turn over her shoulder. She sees the SUV coming towards her a moment too late. The front of the car strikes her before she can so much as blink. It catches her around the middle with a shuddering crunch that makes Shelby cringe and almost feel bad for her. Almost.

The blow sends the woman flying. She lands on her back five or ten feet away from where she had been hit, rolls over, makes a bubbling sound from the base of her throat, and falls completely still.

She hears the driver door open, watching Rachel stumble out, looking drunk with the emotion of what she'd just done.

"Oh my god, oh my god…" the tiny girl mutters over and over as she surveys the damage she had just done. "Oh my god, I think that I killed her. I was just trying to distract her so you could get away. I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't mean to!"

"It's okay Rachel, get away from there," Shelby waves through her daughter's blind panic quickly, steering her away from Darlene and towards her, just in case Darlene was only just pretending to be hurt and turned on her as soon as she got too close.

Then again, Rachel had smacked her rather hard with that car…

She grabs onto Rachel's shoulder, squeezing it much harder than she intends to in her distress. She silently communicates with the girl to wait here so that she can check on Darlene herself.

She glances down at the crumpled woman. The headlights of the Range Rover drench her body. Her face is covered in blood, although Shelby cannot tell if that is from the car hitting her or from when Shelby had hit her earlier with the stone. Shelby can't tell if she is breathing or not, even when she bends closer into her.

But she does not waste too much time on Darlene. Instead, she picks up the gun that Darlene had just tried to kill her with and pockets it. Just in case.

"Is she dead?" Rachel's voice shudders as she calls out the question. She is straining her neck, torn between trying to get a look for herself and not wanting to know.

"I don't know," Shelby admits, backing away slowly as she tucks the pistol into her back pocket. She knows that Rachel is likely terrified that she had just killed Darlene, but technically, Darlene had been trying to kill them first. Shelby feels little sympathy and she is afraid that she has already wasted too much time. "But I don't think we should stick around and find out. Come on, let's go get Quinn."

Rachel swallows, but mimics Shelby's urgency to get to the blonde. She listens obediently as Shelby waves her forward.

Both of them race towards the house, breathing heavily, desperate to move quickly yet at the same time, terrified by what they might find inside.

Shelby is the first to reach out and grab onto the doorknob. She hesitates just long enough for Rachel to notice. She hesitates just long enough for somebody on the other side of the door to latch onto the knob and twist the door open first.

Shelby jumps, her first instinct being to throw Rachel behind her and offer the protection of whatever threat they had just walked in on with her body, but it turns out that that is unnecessary. As Shelby's eyes adjust to the sudden light, she manages to make out a girl with knotted blonde hair sticking up in all directions and wild, frightened eyes.

"Quinn!" Rachel gasps from behind Shelby, pushing past the woman to wrap Quinn in an embrace full of relief.

She pulls her arms tight around the blonde's neck, reeling her in close. The blonde reciprocates the ferocity of Rachel's hug. She wraps her arms around Rachel's waist, squeezes her eyes closed, and buries her face into the girl's shoulder, trying to remind herself not to cry. She is so happy to find Rachel alive that she almost forgets.

Shelby watches the two girls interact, almost afraid to interfere and remind them that they are not out of harm's way yet. The older woman knows that they should not be lingering here, but she stands and observes the two for a moment, amazed by their hidden pockets of strength, and can't find the heart to separate them just yet.

Instead, Shelby makes a quick and silent assessment of Quinn. Her already broken knuckles are covered with blood again. Shelby can see it collecting against the white liner that is underneath her black cast. At first, Shelby thinks she had re-aggravated the old injury, but then she notices that in Quinn's right hand, she is gripping a pipe with enough blood dripping from the end of it to tell Shelby that Rachel is not the only one here who found out tonight what she is capable of doing in order to survive…

"What happened?" Rachel finally whispers, pulling away from Quinn only by a fraction of an inch. The young brunette's voice has grown surprisingly calm in the blonde's presence.

"I'll fill you in later," Quinn promises, shaking her head. Her eyes turn on Shelby. She realizes that Rachel has a lot to fill her in on as well in the short amount of time it has been since they have been separated, but this is hardly the time or the place. "I just… I heard gunshots and I panicked. I thought… I thought…"

Quinn can't even finish the sentence. She looks down at Rachel, finds the tear in her sweater, the blood on her arm and shudders. She drops the bloodied pipe to the floor so that she can graze her fingertips across the wound, as though trying to heal it by magic, when all three girls are distracted by a gurgling gasp coming from behind them.

"Peter!" Rachel gasps. In the chaos, she had forgotten all about him and what happened to him.

She shoulders past Quinn and into the house. Shelby knows that she shouldn't let Rachel or Quinn back in there, but she feels like her legs are suddenly made of Jell-O as Rachel mentions the man she had almost forgotten was here, even though he was the entire reason they were in this mess.

"Shelby, you have to help him!" Rachel calls over her shoulder, but Shelby is frozen where she stands so that Rachel has to grab onto her wrist and drag her into the house. She sees a man that she doesn't recognize unconscious, face-down on the floor and reasons that his presence here is what Quinn was talking about when she said she will fill them in later. It is who is laying right next to him that interests Shelby; a man that Shelby is seeing for the first time in eighteen years, lying on the floor surrounded by a halo of his own blood.

After Peter's dismissal of not only her allegation against him, but her pregnancy, embarrassment replaced the need for justice and revenge. When Shelby finally built up the nerve to tell her parents that she was pregnant, she made no indication that her condition had not been met by consensual means. Instead, she had fielded the disappointment of her parents, teachers, and friends. Instead, she had written application withdrawal letters to all of her dream colleges. Instead, she waited until she was alone to take everything that Peter had ever done to her and push it out in the form of sobs.

It isn't that she is disappointed to see Peter like this. It is just that she doesn't want to remember his voice. She doesn't want to remember his face or his touch or how much she hates him. Especially, she doesn't want to remember how much she once loved him.

She couldn't help him now. She didn't want to.

"Please, Shelby!"

She looks up at her daughter, who is staring at her with wide, desperate eyes. Looking at Rachel immediately makes her rethink her perspective, as it always does. When Shelby looks at Rachel, she no longer thinks about the abysmal way that the city of Lima had treated her after she had gotten pregnant, and instead remembers the first time she ever felt a tiny kick inside of her. How, amidst one of the worst days of her teenage life, she had somehow found the strength to smile. And today, amidst one of the worst days of her adult life, the mere memory almost manages to help her do the same.

Except now, Rachel is heated and angry and frustrated that nobody wants to help her. She jumps up when neither Shelby or Quinn responds to her call for help and decides to take action into her own hands.

Rachel doesn't know much about medicine at all. She had lasted about a week as a Girl Scout and skipped the lesson about first aid because she felt squeamish around blood. She couldn't even stand to watch medical dramas on television. She did at least know that when somebody is bleeding, the first thing you do is apply pressure.

Rachel throws herself to her knees in front of Peter. She leans forward, preparing to press her bare palms into Peter's chest to try to stop the bleeding herself, but before she can do that, she feels somebody grab her by the shoulder and pull her back.

"Don't touch him, Rachel," Shelby warns. She doesn't like the implication of Rachel getting too close without so much as a pair of gloves. Shelby can tell just by looking at Peter that he has spent the latter half of the last two decades strung out on drugs. God only knows what is hidden unseen inside of his bloodstream.

"He saved my life, Shelby!" Rachel argues. "The least that I can do is help him!"

"The police are on their way."

"You've been saying that!" Rachel yells, the panic clear inside of her voice as her cheeks flush red with it. "But they're still not here and he's dying!"

She gestures down to the man and Shelby takes him in, really takes him in for the first time.

At first, she thinks that there has to be some sort of mistake. This can't be Peter. Peter doesn't have long, graying hair or a face that looks almost skeletal.

But then he tips his eyes up and Shelby can't help but to gasp because she was certain that he was already dead despite Rachel's determination to help.

He does not speak, but he does stare, with those same eyes that she saw every time she looked at her daughter.

These are the same eyes that made her run away the first time she ever looked at Rachel, she was so unprepared to see them. She remembers how much it had struck her, how much Rachel's similarities to him had affected her.

It is even worse, actually seeing him. Peter Gabbanelli has existed as her ghost since she was a teenager, and once you have a ghost, it is not so easy to get rid of it. Instead, Shelby had tried to get rid of herself, or at least who she was. But she quickly learned that that was not so easy. There was one thing that kept Shelby rooted to Lima and to Peter, and it turned out that Rachel Berry had an awfully powerful grip on her for such a small thing.

Shelby scrunches her face as the desire to please Rachel and the desire to avenge Peter's actions against her struggle in a vicious conflict inside of her head.

She can't help but to think that she doesn't particularly care whether or not Peter lives or dies. After everything that he has done to Shelby, and especially now, after everything he has done to Rachel, Shelby knows that he deserves it. He had made his bed eighteen years ago. Now, it is time for him to lie in it.

This is about the way that she noticed that Rachel and Peter had the exact same eyes and that she couldn't look into them without being reminded of what happened to her that night.

This is about the way that Shelby saw how happy and healthy and talented Rachel had grown to be with Hiram and LeRoy despite her, and about how if Rachel had grown up with Shelby, she would have had only a fraction of what those men had provided her with.

This is about the fear that Rachel would grow up to become just like her…

But the longer she stares at Rachel, begging for Peter's life, the more she realizes that it isn't where Rachel had cultivated her talent and happiness from, only that she had. It isn't that Rachel's eyes mimic Peter's, but the reminder that they never could because they could never harbor hate like Peter's had.

It isn't that Rachel is growing up to be just like her, but to be better than her.

Determined to stop the cycle of failing her daughter, Shelby decides that she will no longer live her life based off her fear of Peter, but on her love for Rachel.

She approaches the man, still cautious despite her commitment to help. She had agreed to help him not for him, but for Rachel, and she wasn't planning on being stupid about it. She has already done plenty of stupid things when it came to Peter. He might be dying, but Shelby had enough experience to know that she couldn't be too careful. Somebody who has crossed the ledge once is very likely to do it again, despite the circumstances.

Shelby shrugs out of her jacket so that she might use it to apply pressure against Peter's wound before she kneels beside the man. There had been a point in her life where she had dreamed of getting rid of this man for good. To be honest, she still thought about it from time to time, even before she learned that Rachel was actively searching for him. Never once in those thoughts did she ever imagine herself actively stepping in to try to save him.

As she kneels down, Shelby feels Darlene's gun, still secured in her back pocket slip out and fall to the floor. Briefly, she considers that it is a miracle that it doesn't go off, but she doesn't let the thought of what-if's consume her. She forgets all about it and concentrates on Peter.

She presses her favorite fall jacket into the center of Peter's chest where the blood seems to be concentrating the most. It seeps into the fabric, immediately destroying it. Shelby is not surprised. Peter Gabbanelli has been destroying things she loved since she was in high school.

Still, her efforts don't seem to stem the flow of blood at all, and Shelby silently thinks that Peter is unlikely to make it, even with her intervention.

"Shelby…" he gasps at her presence, his voice raspy as he struggles to gather enough breath to produce words.

"Don't talk," Shelby snarls, ignoring the way that her heart skips at the first sound of his voice. Her demand is not because she is concerned about him conserving energy. Instead, it is because she doesn't want to hear his voice. She doesn't want to hear him try to sweet talk himself underneath her skin like he had done so many times before.

"I'm dying," he coughs, ignoring her demand, which seems to be a common theme for him. Even now. Shelby knows that what he is saying is probably true, but she rolls her eyes anyway.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," she mutters, pressing her jacket deeper into the wound in his chest. "Then again, I seem to recall that being an ongoing problem for you."

Peter quiets for a moment, and Shelby thinks that he is actually listening to her for a change when she follows his eyes and realizes that he is not focusing on her, but on Rachel. He is studying her like he is preparing for an exam on her every feature.

Shelby watches Rachel watching her for a moment. She watches the girl silently beg for Peter's life and wonders if she would be doing this with such conviction if she knew all of the things that Peter had done to try to prevent her from even being born.

"She looks like you," Peter's whisper snaps Shelby back to her task. She looks down at Peter and narrows her eyes at him, pressing unnecessarily harder into his wounded chest until he groans with pain, just so he knows just how much she doesn't appreciate him making comments about Rachel when, if it was up to him, she never would have existed in the first place.

"Don't talk about Rachel," she warns. "You lost that right after everything you did to her."

"Sorry," he sighs, but does not argue. "I just… For the record, you did the right thing. With Rachel, I mean. Giving her up. I'm sorry."

She knows that she is in a rush, but she stops and stares at the man lying on the floor. Their eyes meet. Shelby's face settles, neutral. Once, a long time ago, she used to stay up at night and wonder just what she would say to this man if she ever saw him again. She wondered if she would cry, or yell, or even run away. She is only now realizing that she has always had the advantage.

She stares and stares at Peter for a long time. She has never been comfortable with silences. She was an ambitious girl. Gaps in conversation felt like a waste of time, yet here she is, close-mouthed. Holding herself in. Out of all the things that Shelby can say about Peter, he had saved her daughter's life tonight. _Their_ daughter.

She is not ready to forgive everything that he's done based on a dying display of remorse, nor is she terribly sorry that he is in this position, seeing how he is the one who put himself here, but Shelby is suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of closure, and that is something that she never thought she would ever have when it came to Peter.

"Thank you," she tells him, reasoning that she can give him at least that. "Now please stop talking."

"You can't save me," he tells her, and much to Shelby's surprise, he offers her a little laugh at the end of his claim, a laugh that almost reminds her of when they were teenagers. Shelby swallows the thought away before she can let it consume her. "Get the girls and get out of here. Leave."

Shelby swallows, but she knows that Peter has a point. She also knows that she will be hard pressed to convince Rachel of that.

With a sour look on her face, Shelby looks up at her daughter. The girl is looking on, eyes wide and searching for a miracle. She is standing two or three steps in front of Quinn, but she is holding onto the blonde girl's hand tight, her shoulder extended to the full capacity, torn between her mother and her friend.

"Why are you stopping?" Rachel accuses, when she notices the way that Shelby eases the pressure off Peter's chest and looks at her with disappointed eyes that tell her the truth before she can even say it.

"Rachel…" Shelby breathes, but she runs empty when it comes to what to say next.

"Please, Shelby!" the girl begs, tears stinging at the bottom of her eyes in a way that makes Shelby's heart bend and nearly break. "I know that it looks bad, but Peter tried to save me and Quinn tonight. We have to help him! Please!"

"Rachel, we can't stay here," Shelby shakes her head, her voice soft as she silently begs Rachel to see reason. "Darlene can wake up any time. So can he," she shrugs towards the large man lying face down on the floor. "We need to leave."

"We can at least carry him to the car," she pleads, relentless. Rachel knows that she can convince Shelby. The girl had watched her work on Peter despite her hesitation, do what she asked her to do. It was almost like she had gotten all the answers she had come all this way for just by watching the two interact. Rachel believes that there really was a point in time that Shelby loved Peter Gabbanelli, but she never considered that she loved Rachel so much more until she watches her mother bite through every reservation she has about this man and nod.

Shelby surveys the two girls in front of her. Between Quinn's broken hand and the graze wound in Rachel's arm, Shelby isn't expecting to get much help.

Drugs may have turned Peter rail thin, but Shelby knows she isn't exactly strong. She isn't confident that she can drag Peter all the way to her Range Rover without wasting a significant amount of time. Time she isn't sure that they have.

What makes her hesitate even more is the fact that she still isn't so sure that she even wants to.

Shelby is still trying to figure out the logistics of everything when she front door bursts open with a force that causes a shrill shriek to escape from her mouth. The noise would embarrass her if she wasn't so terrified at the woman standing in front of her, here to finish what she started.

Darlene is bruised and bloodied. She walks slowly, with a crooked gait and holds her left arm tight into her side, but she has a gun in her hand. Shelby should have known that in a place like this, she would have unlimited access to weapons, and Shelby taking one away would hardly make a difference.

She is torn between being relieved for Rachel, that her daughter is off the hook for living with killing Darlene, even if it was in self-defense, or disappointed that she hadn't, because now she is forced to hurdle over one more obstacle that she can't afford right now.

In the distance, Shelby notices a chorus of sirens. Briefly, the thought _finally_ crosses her mind. It feels like hours ago that she had placed that 911 call. The truth is that it couldn't have been more than forty five minutes. But a lot had happened in that forty five minutes, including her almost dying. Twice.

She silently wonders if their response is going to be too little too late.

With a gun in Darlene's hand, Shelby knows that her, Quinn, and Rachel could all be dead within a matter of seconds. She had held onto Darlene's old gun for protection but had been foolish enough to leave it where it had fallen next to Peter when she had been trying to save him.

She curses silently under her breath. This man had a serious tendency to make her life difficult, even when he wasn't trying to.

Before she can waste too much time and energy lamenting on the negative effects Peter has had on her life since she was a teenager, Darlene raises her gun. She doesn't say a word or make any kind of noise. There is so much blood on her swollen face that Shelby wonders if she could, even if she wanted to.

She senses Darlene prepare to shoot. Shelby knows that she cannot possibly escape, but she knows that she has to do something.

In the fraction of a second that she has, she reacts. She turns on her heels, her back to Darlene. She fans her arms out like an eagle, draping them over Rachel and Quinn, trying to use as much of her body as possible to protect them.

Shelby hears a gunshot, but she is distinctly aware that it comes from a different direction than what she is expecting. She doesn't even flinch like she had when Darlene had been shooting earlier. She isn't expecting a bullet, even though she is right in the line of fire. She knows that in her gut, she will not be hit.

She uses this temporary new lease on life and pushes Rachel and Quinn quickly to the floor, trying to get them as much cover as possible before the shots can continue.

It is only when they are both pressed flat against the ground that she turns to piece together what just happened.

She turns over her shoulder, looking towards Darlene, still standing in the doorway. She is still holding onto her gun, except it is no longer pointed at her. Instead, it is dropped down to her side, like she has lost the energy that she needs to keep it up.

It is only when she staggers further through the doorway, flush under the light does Shelby notice the new, budding blood stain in the center of her chest, the wide, glazed look in her eyes. She makes it only two or three steps before she stumbles backwards, trips over her own two feet, and falls flat onto her back, straddling the doorway, half inside and half out.

Panting with fear and still trying to piece together the parts to everything that just happened, Shelby turns from Darlene to Peter. She watches the man just in time to see the gun that she had left in front of him slip from his fingers. It falls to the hard wood with a crash. His body follows suite, the effort of shooting Darlene apparently taking everything that he had left out of him.

Shelby stares at him for a long time. She waits for him to move again. She waits for him to stand up and turn back into the Peter she remembers. She waits for him to speak, to move, even to breathe, but she sees nothing and she knows that he is gone before Rachel can even walk over to him, press her fingers into his neck, and confirm that fact for herself.

Shelby doesn't know what to do, so she doesn't do anything. Instead, she keeps on staring, waiting, unsure what to make of these feelings swirling around inside of her head as the sirens get closer and closer until they are so close, that the red and blue lights associated with them flash through the open door and highlight her, Rachel, and Quinn. The last three standing, wondering if this ordeal is finally over. Wondering if they had really managed to survive it after all.


	16. Chapter 16

**Hey everyone! So this is a bit of a long one, which is my means of an apology for the wait. I'm thinking that the next chapter is the last one for now, but we shall see. Thanks again to everybody for hanging around!**

* * *

 **Chapter 16** **:**

"Mrs. Berry?"

Shelby blinks her eyes slowly open. She recognizes that somebody is speaking to her but does not connect the name. It does not click. In fact, she passes right over it, it sounds so foreign.

She sits slightly higher inside of her seat as her eyes start to clear from the sleep she must have succumbed to while she was sitting here. The first thing that she sees is a pair of legs clad in light blue scrubs, attached to a middle-aged man with terrible five-o-clock shadow.

She blinks up at the unfamiliar man, her head still foggy with sleep and stress. Things have been moving unnaturally quickly ever since the police had stormed the house. Just as seamlessly as everything had started, it was over. It is only now that Shelby is starting to realize that something like this can never truly be _over_.

The police had questioned Shelby and the girls for a long time. In that time, photos had been taken and evidence collected. Joe was placed inside of an ambulance handcuffed to the stretcher he rode while Darlene and Peter's bodies had been loaded into bags and hauled off by the coroner like it was nothing. Shelby had made the mistake of asking what would happen if nobody claimed them.

She doubts very much that she will ever forget everything that Peter and Darlene have done to her, tonight or ever, but it still unnerves her that those were two human beings, whose lives will now only amount to two unmarked graves in the back of some government-owned graveyard.

Shelby watched sadly over Rachel and Quinn like a guardian as they fielded questions from investigators with a resolve that made her proud.

She has known for a long time that a pain like this takes a permanent hold over you once it slithers inside. It preys on you, sneaks up on you when you least expect it. It never even gives you a chance to fight. She hates that she is connected with the girls in that understanding now. Nobody deserves that. Especially not two girls so young.

They may have come out victorious on the other side, but at what cost?

Shelby never wanted this life for her daughter. That is why she had done what she did in the first place. She wonders if tragedy, like eye color and bone structure, is somehow written in the genetic code. She wonders if this is how Rachel's story was destined to play out before the girl was even born.

Those same detectives had found her after they were finished with the girls, pacing up and down the middle of the crowded driveway, drawing in breaths so huge that they make her entire chest swell like a balloon.

They didn't have anymore questions to ask her, she had already given them everything that she could. Instead, they were here to inform.

Apparently, Peter had been on the radar of the DEA for some time. So had his family before him.

His father was mafia connected, a thought that Shelby always assumed although she was too afraid to ever ask. Except Peter Gabbanelli Sr. had died nearly a decade ago before anybody could gather enough evidence to successfully prosecute him. Being good at keeping secrets must be a gene that skips generations, because for his talent in it, his son made up for it by getting caught every single time.

Unfortunately, a small town like Foster had been a dead end for a man like Peter. If he had a neon sign over his head in Lima, he certainly attracted attention selling opioids and methamphetamines to towns that boasted populations of less than one hundred people.

The detectives had also confided in Shelby that they were suspicious that Darlene has been increasing her profits by experimenting in human trafficking.

Shelby remembers the shudder that had flooded through her when she had heard that. She remembers looking across the driveway where Rachel and Quinn were wrapped tight in silver blankets and holding hands, pulled so close together that it created the illusion that they were one, and wondering what would have happened to Rachel if she was five minutes later and allowed Darlene to get away with her…

"Mrs. Berry?"

The man standing in front of her questions her again when she doesn't answer the first time. He is standing so close that it appears that he is towering over her. Concern floods his handsome features at her lack of response. It is only then that it really clicks for Shelby that he is addressing her, that he thinks that she is not only Rachel Berry's mother, but her mom as well.

"Corcoran," Shelby corrects, standing up from her seat. It is incredibly relieving when she learns that she is actually taller than him. "Shelby Corcoran."

"My apologies, Mrs. Corcoran. I just wanted to let you know that Rachel and Quinn are all set. You can take them home now."

Shelby nods, tight-lipped. She wishes that she could take Rachel and Quinn home, but it seemed impossibly far away now. The police had asked them several questions already but asked that they remained in the area for the next couple of days, just in case.

"So, they're okay?" Shelby asks, the worry still evident inside of her voice although she has been assured time and time again that physically, both Rachel and Quinn were expected to make full recoveries. It was the rest of it that remains to be seen.

"They're fine," the doctor nods. "We just had to clean out the wound in Rachel's arm. It wasn't even deep enough to need stitches. She just has to keep it clean and bandaged for the next few days and she will be good as new. Same with Quinn. She had a small cut on her head, but it also did not require stitches nor were there any signs of a concussion. They should both be just fine."

"Should be?" Shelby questions.

The doctor smiles softly at the unnecessary concern and Shelby wonders how many hyper-concerned, overbearing parents he deals with every day and whether or not any of them can hold a stick to her after what Rachel and Quinn have been through tonight.

"They _will_ be fine," he corrects himself quickly. "I just need you to sign some paperwork at the nurse's station and you'll be able to take them home."

Shelby nods her head and pulls her lip in between her teeth as she turns over her shoulder towards the nurse's station. Nobody here has any idea that legally, she has no right to sign anything relating to Rachel.

Quinn is much easier. She is eighteen, she could sign herself out of the hospital, but Rachel still had a couple months left until her birthday, and despite craving this kind of responsibility when it came to her daughter all of the girl's life, it feels strange now that she has it, and she finds herself getting strung up.

She doesn't know what to do. This is probably the easiest decision she's been forced to make all night and yet, it is the one she hesitates the most on. In the end, she nods away from the doctor and pulls her cell out of the pocket to place the call she probably should have made an hour ago.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end is heavy and rushed. It is early in the morning, the kind of early where nobody should still be awake, yet Hiram Berry answers the phone on the first ring, like he has been sitting next to it waiting for Shelby to call. She realizes that he probably has been.

"Hiram…" she breathes. Her voice is shaking. She can't manage anything else.

"Did you find her?" he pants into the phone. Over his shoulder, he can hear LeRoy's hurried voice shouting a thousand questions over his husband's shoulder.

"I did," she nods to nobody. "And Quinn."

"Thank god," the man sighs, relief filtering inside of his voice. "We're getting ready to leave for the airport now. We'll be there before noon. Has she said anything to you about why she did this? Are her and Quinn okay?"

"We haven't had much time to talk yet, but they're fine," Shelby tells him. "I took them to the hospital to get looked at, but they're fine. They're getting ready to be discharged right now."

"What happened?" the man hesitates despite Shelby's assurances. The relief that Shelby had previously heard, shadowed by the anger he felt towards his daughter's actions disappears. Now, the only thing that Shelby hears is fear. "Were they with Peter?"

Shelby hesitates and bites her lip again before answering.

"They were,"

"Where is he?" Hiram asks. Shelby can hear him seething even over the phone towards the possibility that Peter had done something to Rachel to put her in the hospital, even if it was only precautionary.

Shelby takes a deep breath and braces herself.

"Peter's dead."

The silence that greets her is deafening.

"What the hell happened?" he asks again. His voice is loud in his fear, in his uncertainty. He punctuates every syllable. His voice is trembling.

Shelby tells the story slowly, without holding onto any detail, but she can only tell the parts that she knows. Quinn and Rachel are the only ones who can relay what had happened before she had gotten there, and if she is being honest with herself, she is afraid to even ask.

While Shelby had sensed Hiram's anger with his daughter at the beginning of her phone call, by the time Shelby is finished telling him everything that happened tonight, he only sounds relieved that Rachel is still alive for him to be angry with.

Shelby finds that she understands the feeling well.

In the end, Hiram and LeRoy both give Shelby their blessing to sign Rachel's discharge paperwork. They also offer to pay for a hotel room for her and the girls this evening until their flight can land in the morning.

After Shelby hangs up with Hiram, she approaches the nurse's station and signs her name in large, loopy handwriting on Rachel's discharge paperwork in the slot labeled _Parent or Legal Guardian._ She stares at her own name staring back at her for a long time, hypnotized by the moment until the nurse interrupts her so that she can make a copy for Shelby to give to Hiram and LeRoy for their files.

Shelby has to resist the urge to ask for one for herself as well.

Shelby knocks quietly on the open door of the private exam room where Rachel and Quinn are waiting for her. Rachel is pulling her sleeve down over the fresh bandage on her arm. Quinn is sporting a few small butterfly stitches on her forehead. The cast on her hand has also been replaced seeing how the old one had been drenched in blood that was not hers. This one was a bright pink color, which Shelby found odd seeing how the black of her old cast seemed more appropriate now than ever.

"Are you ready?" Shelby asks the girls, choosing not to mention Quinn's choice for cast color.

She watches Quinn and Rachel turn to each other and communicate silently. Both look terrified to be deposited back inside of that big, scary world after everything that happened to them. For the first time, Shelby notices that their hands are clamped around each other's, so tight that it looks like they are trying to break each other's fingers. They do not let up on that grip, not even for a second.

"Hey…" Shelby sighs encouragingly, picking up on their hesitation as she takes a couple of steps further into the room. She doesn't say anything to them. She doesn't know if there is anything to say. Not yet. Instead, she pulls them both into her, clutching the two terrified girls as though they were children, holding onto them as tightly as they are holding onto each other.

"It's over," she tells them after she finally feels them relax into the embrace, and they all pretend that it is true, even though all three of them know that it is only just the beginning.

* * *

Shelby drives Rachel and Quinn back to Peter's trailer so that Quinn can pick up her car.

She slows to a gradual halt in front of the long driveway. Somehow, this place seems darker than it had before, bleaker…

She throws the car into park and peers into the rearview mirror to look into the back seat where Quinn and Rachel are tangled up into each other, fast asleep. Even in sleep they are too terrified to let go of one another. Shelby frowns. Only now that the dust is starting to settle is she really starting to wonder how they are supposed to move on from this.

She considers letting the girls sleep, considers driving them to the hotel and coming back in the morning to pick up Quinn's car, but Shelby is reluctant to ever have to come back to this place ever again. She wants to put Peter behind her once and for all. She is confident that both Rachel and Quinn will feel the same.

Shelby has never told this to anybody, but when she was a little less than four months along with Rachel, she had started to plan her escape.

She had read a magazine article about a mother who had kidnapped her two children in Vermont to escape an abusive husband that the law wouldn't do a thing about, and although Shelby's situation wasn't exactly the same, she still felt empowered by this woman's story. She found that she could relate.

The woman had dyed the children's hair and drove them across the Canadian border with fake passports. Shelby figured that in her situation, it would be much easier. With the baby still inside of her, she wouldn't have to worry about any of that. She only had to take herself, and then her and her baby would start a new life with the child growing up never even knowing the difference.

But her dreams of singing, of Broadway could never come true if that were the case. She couldn't risk being in the spotlight if it meant being found by Peter. Even if she stuck to low key productions, New York would be the first place that Peter would go looking for her. Shelby didn't even want to think about what he would do to her or her baby when he inevitably found her.

Even after Shelby had abandoned her plan of running away, handed her daughter off to the Berry men, and whisked away to New York, she always held back at her auditions. Something about the idea of Peter finding her through the thing that she loved the most always made her hesitate, and she had paid for that with her dreams.

Shrugging the thought away, Shelby turns over her shoulder and reaches out behind her. She grabs onto the first body part she can get a hold of, which just so happens to be Quinn's knee, and gives it a firm shake. The blonde shoots to life like she had just been slapped, which jolts Rachel awake right next to her.

"Whatsgoingon?" Rachel asks, her voice sluggish and indistinguishable in her sleep.

"Nothing," Shelby whispers reassuringly, trying to ease the panic she had inadvertently created. "We're just here to pick up Quinn's car. Then you girls can follow me to the hotel."

She watches the teenagers rub at their exhausted eyes with clenched fists and blink up at her before turning to look out the window. Their faces change immediately, only now realizing where Shelby had taken them. When they look back to the woman, they appear almost betrayed at the idea that she had taken them here, although they had known that it was inevitable.

Slowly, they settle down and untangle their limbs to climb out of the car.

Quinn helps Rachel out of the car before slamming the door shut behind them. Immediately, the dog that is still inside of that house starts to bark again. Just like before, it is a loud, drawling bark, but it has also changed in that it seems to be growing more and more desperate the longer he is left alone locked inside of a dark house.

Shelby is still sitting in the driver's seat when Rachel turns to look at her with those big, round eyes that can sway her in any way Rachel wants her to.

Her face is devoid of all the exhaustion that had just been inside of it, and Shelby suddenly knows what she is going to say before the girl can even open her mouth.

"We can't leave it here."

Shelby sighs. She has enough on her mind without having to deal with taking care of a dog as well.

"We can call animal control, Rachel," she offers, but the girl's face only falls further.

"Who knows how long that will take!" she argues. "And besides, everybody knows that they just end up putting those dogs down anyway."

Shelby frowns, but her face falls, considering. She realizes that Rachel has a point. Shelby has no idea what is going to happen to Peter's house now that he is gone, or how long it will take for somebody to get out here. Judging by the abysmal response time of the police tonight, Shelby is willing to guess that animal control could take days.

She narrows her eyes down at Rachel but nods her head.

"Make it fast," she tells the girl, whose face brightens at the permission. She nods in agreement and turns to run up towards the trailer, dragging Quinn behind her.

"And be careful!" Shelby shouts after them when they are already halfway up the path to the house. The only thing that Rachel does to even acknowledge that she had heard Shelby is to offer her a small wave as she climbs up the front porch, dragging Quinn behind her. Shelby sighs and falls back into her seat. She knows that Rachel is not one to follow instructions, especially when she is determined.

With a deep breath, Rachel tries the doorknob. She is not surprised when it twists freely inside of her hands. There weren't enough people around here for the residents to lock their doors, even a resident deeply involved in the drug game.

Hand still on the knob, Rachel hesitates and takes a deep breath. It is an action that does not go unnoticed by Quinn.

"You okay?" the blonde asks, furrowing her eyebrows.

Rachel nods her head slowly, but when she takes another deep breath, it shakes on the way out, and Rachel isn't stupid enough to believe that she snuck it past Quinn.

"I think so."

Quinn frowns at her. "You don't have to go in there if you don't want to."

"I know it's stupid," Rachel sighs, her grip on the doorknob tightening even as she undermines her hesitation, so hard that her knuckles hurt, and she has to resist the urge to cry. "It's just a dog."

"It's not stupid," Quinn insists. She places her hand down against Rachel's shoulder and squeezes tightly. She feels the brunette's muscles relax underneath her touch and doesn't let go until Rachel finally turns over her shoulder to look at her. Quinn offers her a small smile, and even though Rachel only just manages to return it, Quinn decides to let it go for now.

"You're pretty good at saving people, you know that?" Quinn asks the girl, trying to extract that sense of confidence that seemed to make Rachel, Rachel. "And dogs."

"I didn't save Peter," Rachel breathes, and Quinn feels her face fall as the brunette finally lets the truth spill out.

Quinn exhales, trying to think of the right thing to say to a girl who is clearly hurting, who thinks that everything that happened tonight is her fault, when the truth is she never could have known.

"You saved me," Quinn finally reasons, shaking her head softly. "I spent my entire life searching for ways to push you away and you still saved me. I almost got you killed tonight, and you still saved me."

Quinn offers a small half-smile to Rachel, who returns it shyly before averting her eyes.

"I wouldn't have had to if I hadn't almost gotten you killed in the first place."

Quinn shrugs her shoulders like Rachel's point is an indifferent factor. The truth is that the guilt has been consuming her from the moment that she let Rachel walk into that house with Peter alone. She regrets almost everything from the moment she had made the suggestion to Rachel to come here. The only part of this trip that didn't seem like a total waste was Rachel kissing her, and she had even managed to screw that up.

All of her actions seem to have led to this incredibly preventable situation, and to hear that Rachel doesn't seem to be holding that against her is like a weight being lifted off of her shoulders.

"Maybe we can call it even," the blonde offers.

Rachel considers Quinn for a moment before nodding. It is not the fact that Rachel blames Quinn that is causing her to hesitate, it is the fact that she cannot wrap her head around why or how the blonde still wants anything to do with her after what she had just dragged her into.

"Okay," Rachel finally concedes after a long moment, but her voice remains uncertain and Quinn isn't stupid enough to believe that this will not have to come up again, perhaps when they were not standing in front of Rachel's dead biological father's house…

Rachel takes one last audible breath before she pushes the door open. She peers inside before entering the house, afraid of what she might find, but despite it being pitch black and musty, it appears to be cleaner than Rachel had been expecting, like Peter had relegated all of his junk and trash to the front lawn.

Rachel gropes along the wall for a light switch until she finds one and floods the trailer with light. From somewhere in the back, the barking of the dog grows faster, more excited as it hears people enter, but when no dog immediately rushes in to attack them, Rachel reasons that it must be locked away somewhere and deems it safe to push further into the house.

"What if it doesn't let us take it?" Rachel asks Quinn hesitantly as she follows the sound of the barking.

She wonders what kind of dog Peter will have. She pictures a Pitbull or a Rottweiler or something trained to guard what Peter was selling and attack if necessary.

When Rachel was younger she had a dog. She was a Husky named Bella that her fathers had brought home for Christmas when she was two because they were afraid that growing up an only child, Rachel needed a little more companionship at home.

Bella was a fantastic dog, the only thing in the house that could keep up with Rachel's level of energy. She used to knock her over every time she came home from school and Rachel would giggle and dig her hands into the dog's scruff as it licked her face obsessively, Bella's way of saying hello.

Bella and Rachel grew up together until Rachel was too big for Bella to knock over and Rachel sacrificed time with her dog for clubs and sports and endless rehearsal time.

Rachel was in middle school when she noticed that Bella was getting older much faster than she was. When Rachel got home, the dog would just lay on the floor despondently, beat her tail once or twice against the floor as a means of saying hello, and then just stare without moving.

Rachel remembers wondering if that was just a part of growing up. You learn that people are usually worse than they are better, and you stop wasting your energy trying to prove otherwise. Rachel wonders if not learning that lesson as quickly as her dog had was her downfall when it came to Peter.

"It will let me take it," Quinn assures Rachel, all confidence, pulling her out of her thoughts. "I'm like an animal whisperer."

"Have you ever had a pet before in your life?" Rachel asks uncertainly. Somehow, she doesn't picture either of Quinn's parents being particularly keen on having animals in their house.

"I have a fish," Quinn shrugs like that is anywhere similar. "Although I'm almost certain my mom hasn't fed it since I've been gone. So I guess to say I _had_ a fish will be more appropriate."

"That's not a very good argument for your case."

"Why not?" Quinn shrugs. "It means that I'm going to need a replacement pet."

They turn a corner where a rusty baby gate is separating the kitchen from the rest of the trailer.

While Rachel had been expecting a ferocious dog prepared to attack them, she is surprised to find a fairly young yellow lab, tongue hanging out of his mouth, tail wagging, excited to finally have company after being left alone all day.

Despite being a little bit on the skinny side, the dog looks otherwise healthy despite his circumstances. In fact, he looks healthier than even Peter had, like the man had thought that if he couldn't take care of himself, he might as well make up for it by taking care of something else.

"Aren't you cute…" Quinn speaks to the dog as she unlatches the gate. The lab launches himself out of the kitchen with awkward steps, jumping and licking at the girls in his excitement, desperate for attention.

"He doesn't have any tags," Quinn comments. "And I doubt he's microchipped. What's your name, buddy?"

The dog responds only by trying to lick at Quinn's face again. The blonde moves out of the way just in time, but still catches some of the flying slobber.

Quinn scratches the dog once behind the ears before standing up and grabbing a leash she finds hanging on the far wall of the kitchen. Shelby had told the girls to make it quick, but the dog looks hungry and she can't help but to sacrifice some time to dump some food she finds in a bag on the counter into a bowl.

"That should hold him over for a little while," Quinn comments absently, but when she gets no response, she turns over her shoulder where she finds Rachel glancing around the room, taking in every detail of Peter's life as he had left it forever.

"Rachel?" Quinn calls to the girl, frowning. She is seriously worried about Rachel. She doesn't seem to be taking what happened tonight well, and while Quinn can't say that she blames her, she knows that Rachel has been holding back ever since they left Darlene's house. She also knows that such a tiny thing can only hold so much inside of her before she snaps.

"Huh?" the brunette shakes her head to attention, eyes snapping from a pile of mail on the counter, towards the dog gobbling down its food like it hasn't eaten in days, and back to Quinn.

"I asked if you were about ready." It is not what she said at all, but she senses the need to get Rachel out of this place. She wants to press her. She wants to ask if she is okay, but she doesn't think that this is the right time or the right place, so she doesn't. Instead, Quinn watches silently as Rachel nods her head.

"Sure."

Quinn holds tight onto the dog's leash while the energetic animal pulls her out of the trailer and back into the darkness of the night.

Shelby is standing outside of her Range Rover waiting for them. She looks nervous, like she had been seconds away from storming into the trailer to see if something had gone wrong, the girls had taken so long. Quinn feels a sense of guilt consume her in a way that never used to happen before when it came to Shelby…

Quinn settles the dog into the backseat of her car while Rachel gets into the front.

They drive over an hour to a hotel that is closer to Omaha because that is where the Berry men will fly into at the crack of dawn tomorrow… Or today, Quinn notices as the clock ticks to two a.m.

Shelby drives ahead of them, ten miles under the speed limit. Every once in a while, when Quinn is close enough, she notices Shelby frequently checking in her rearview to make sure that the girls are still behind her.

At the hotel, Quinn notices the large dent in front of Shelby's Range Rover for the first time. She knew that Rachel had smacked Darlene with the car from when they had been speaking with the detectives together, but the imprint in the front of a tank like a Range Rover gives Quinn a sense of just how hard Rachel had hit her for the first time.

Inside, the attendant at the front desk looks bored and doesn't even glance up from her magazine when Shelby asks for two rooms for the night. Instead, she tells Shelby that check-in hours are over, and she would have to wait until 3:00 in the afternoon to get a room.

It is only when Shelby starts to argue that the girl finally looks up and gets a good look at Shelby and the girls. Quinn becomes aware of what a mess the three of them must look like for the first time because after that, the girl's jaw slides open on a broken hinge and she doesn't ask anymore questions, just gives Shelby the rooms without even mentioning the dog Quinn is still dragging behind her even though there is a sign over her shoulder that clearly states _No Pets._

The girls settle into a room together while Shelby takes the one right next door.

While they are unpacking their things and pulling out their pajamas, the dog is still running in circles around them, bouncing and bounding and trying to emit some of the energy that it had accumulated throughout the day.

Quinn starts calling him Vinny because _My Cousin Vinny_ had been what was on the television when Rachel had kissed her and even though it is not the most romantic movie in the world, and the rest of the trip had been one she so desperately wanted to forget, she wanted to carve that particular moment out, isolate it, and remember it forever.

When Rachel asks, Quinn just tells her that that is the first name she thought of. She doesn't think that the brunette would appreciate the romanticism of naming a dog after the first time they kissed.

When there is a knock at the door a half hour later, the girl's silence. Even the dog seems to notice the tension that suddenly arises throughout the room because he stills, whimpers, and lays down submissively with his head in between his front paws.

Quinn is the first one to stand up. She is not particularly afraid of being blindsided in a hotel room eighty miles outside of Foster, but still, if there is one thing that she had learned tonight, it is that she can never be too careful.

She peers through the peephole. It is only after she recognizes Shelby standing impatiently outside in the hallway that she unlatches the chain lock, turns the deadbolt, and pulls the door open.

Shelby takes a step inside, pausing in the doorway as she evaluates the girls.

The dog perks at her presence. He looks at Shelby, who is now a familiar face, and realizes immediately that she is not a threat. His tail starts to wag, his ears perking back up, looking for attention that Shelby does not give him.

"Are you girls doing okay?" she asks.

"We're fine," Rachel nods, only half assuring.

Shelby nods, but shoves her hands uncomfortably inside of her pockets and silences. Quinn looks back and forth between her and Rachel. She senses that Shelby would like some time alone with Rachel and reasons that she will make this easy on all three of them. She clears her throat very purposefully.

"I'm uh… I'm just going to go down to the vending machines quick," she announces the excuse to leave. "I'm pretty hungry. Come on, Vinny."

She whistles to the dog, and much to Shelby's surprise, he springs to his feet and pads alongside Quinn like the two have been companions for years rather than just an hour or two.

"There and back, Quinn," Shelby warns. Quinn glances back at her from inside of the doorway.

In any other situation, the blonde would be lambasting this woman for thinking that she is in a position to tell her what to do, but today, everything has changed. She owes a lot more to Shelby. Her life, and Rachel's too.

"Sure," she nods before disappearing behind the door.

The moment that the door closes behind Quinn, Shelby turns towards Rachel. She puts her hands slowly on her hips as she glances down at the girl, who is sitting at the edge of the bed with her fingers clasped together. Her eyes are staring determinedly at the ground.

Shelby has no idea what to say to Rachel. She is embarrassed, but it is true. She has had hours to come up with something, but the harder she tried, the smaller her vocabulary seemed to grow.

"Vinny?" she finally settles, starting slow, meaningless as she takes a step further into the room.

She watches Rachel carefully as the girl's eyes finally tilt up to meet hers. They look wet and afraid, but she still somehow manages a small smile.

"Quinn came up with it," Rachel shrugs. "The dog had no tags or anything. She seems pretty convinced that her mom never fed her goldfish while we were away and killed it. I think she thinks that her mom won't notice if she replaces it with a dog."

"And she thinks that's a safe bet?" Shelby asks Rachel, slightly amused. Of course, judging by their current predicament, Quinn didn't seem to have many problems with placing risky bets, and besides, the other factor in that equation was Mrs. Fabray, who didn't seem terribly concerned when her daughter was revealed to be missing and on her way to Nebraska. A dog could hardly be much worse.

"I guess," Rachel shrugs. She smirks a little bit in amusement, but her eyes fall into her lap again and they don't come back up after that.

Shelby sighs and forces herself deeper into the hotel room, silent, trying to think of what to say next now that she has crossed small talk off of her list.

"So, whose idea was the road trip?" she finally asks, sitting slowly on the bed next to Rachel. "Yours or Quinn's?"

Rachel swallows and immediately begins to fidget with her fingers.

"Are you mad?"

Shelby pauses, having to think about how she is really feeling right now and whether or not it would be right for her to tell the truth to Rachel in a time where she is so vulnerable.

Ultimately, she decides that the girl needs to hear it. She needs to understand the depth of what her and Quinn had put not only her through, but their parents as well.

"I am livid," Shelby tells her. Her voice is an axe. It swings straight down and cuts between the part of Shelby that is Rachel's mother and the part of her that knows that she has absolutely no right to express any sort of disappointment, severing the fine line between the two and making them indistinguishable.

Rachel releases a tiny sound that fills the space around the two of them with dead air, but makes no other sound, giving room for Shelby to continue. The girl had been raised well by her two fathers. She never wanted to disappoint anybody, but disappointment was an inevitable part of life and the harder you tried to avoid it, the worse it felt when you finally did experience it.

Shelby just wishes she had the opportunity to teach her daughter that lesson before she'd have to figure it out for herself.

Shelby sighs, torn between wanting to scream at Rachel and wanting to gather her inside of her arms and never let go.

The mother takes one look at the regret inside of Rachel's eyes and tries not to let it trick her into forgetting her anger. She takes her time trying to come up with what to say. She has never had to do anything like this before. Beth was still far too young to get herself into trouble, especially of this magnitude. Shelby can't help but to think that if this is her first introduction into parenting a teenager, she would rather just skip those years with Beth all together.

"Do you have any idea how stupid what you and Quinn did tonight was?" Shelby finally asks after letting Rachel stew in the uncomfortable silence long enough.

Rachel doesn't say anything, only stares down at her feet. She is well aware of how stupid what she did tonight was, and both her and Shelby know that she had already paid for it dearly. Still, Shelby is not going to let Rachel get away that easily. The worst part is that Rachel knows that she is not just going to have to hear it from Shelby, but from her fathers once they finally get their hands on her as well.

"You and Quinn were almost killed tonight, Rachel," Shelby breathes, because even though she is confident that Rachel is very much aware of how close she came to not making it out of that house tonight, she herself still cannot believe it. Even after she says it out loud, she still doesn't believe it.

"I know, Shelby…"

"I don't think you do, Rachel," Shelby tells her. "I don't think you understand exactly what almost happened to the two of you tonight."

Rachel folds her lips quietly. Now that she is starting to think of how close Rachel and Quinn had come to spending the rest of their lives inside of a drug and human trafficking ring, the terror really starts to seep inside of her again, thoroughly and completely. She finds the anger transforming to fear so quickly, that for a second, she forgets what she is supposed to be angry at to begin with.

"I'm really sorry, Shelby," Rachel sobs. "You have to believe that."

"I do believe you, Rachel," Shelby sighs, shaking her head. "I'm angry, I am, but I'm having a hard time concentrating on how angry I am because I am feeling about a hundred different things right now, too. I'm relieved that you and Quinn are okay. I'm upset with myself for not telling you the truth sooner, for not doing enough to keep things from coming to this."

"It's not your fault, Shelby," Rachel hiccups after a moment. "You tried to tell me that Peter was a bad person and not to trust him, but… but I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe you. I'm so sorry."

Shelby takes a deep breath as she watches a chord inside of Rachel swell and finally snap. The girl breaks down and Shelby watches on because she understands better than anybody that somebody can only be expected to be so hard before they fall.

Recognizing Rachel's defeat, Shelby lets her anger ebb away to empathy. She wonders if it is moments like this that qualify her for the role of parent.

The first time she had met Rachel, she had been so afraid that the girl would have no room for her that she had retreated, pushed Rachel away. It is only now that she is starting to realize that it is not her job to prevent the tragedies and the missteps and the nightmares. It is her job to cushion them when they inevitably do come.

With that understanding in mind, Shelby fights the voice in the back of her head telling her not to get too close and wraps her arm across her daughter's back, pulling her in close to her.

Rachel doesn't pull away like Shelby is expecting. Instead, she presses her face deep into the woman's shoulder where it seems to fit perfectly, and even though she is crying, Shelby can't help but to wonder if this is all it ever took for her to realize that she had the raw materials inside of her to be a good mother this entire time.

"It's not entirely your fault," Shelby assures the trembling girl, kneading her shoulder gently. "I haven't exactly given you a lot of reasons to trust me in the past. This could have all been avoided if I had just been honest with you from the beginning."

Rachel looks up from Shelby's shoulder. Her eyes are wet and glistening. Color is mounted high inside of her cheeks in her emotions, but despite all of this, Shelby marvels that this amazing thing in front of her, this beautiful, compassionate, sensitive being is something that she had created, a beauty that had come out of something terrible.

"You can be honest with me now," Rachel offers, but Shelby frowns at the suggestion. It is not that she doesn't think that Rachel can take it. It is that they have already been through so much tonight.

Mostly, she is afraid that _she_ can't handle it.

"Do you really want to know?" Shelby forces herself to ask after a moment's consideration, when really what she means to ask Rachel is whether or not she would be able to live without knowing. She swallows that question down because she knows the answer to it before she can even finish asking it inside of her head.

Rachel purses her lips, the look inside of her mother's eyes making her uncertain, but if Shelby could be brave enough to face her fears tonight, Rachel reasons she can be brave enough to hear the truth.

She nods her head strongly, only once and watches as Shelby takes a deep breath that shakes the entire way out and starts to tell Rachel the story that is and has always been both of theirs.

* * *

 _She goes into labor in the maternity section of a Macy's while shopping for a dress to wear to her family's Christmas dinner, which honestly, she is surprised she is still invited to._

 _Her water breaks on top of a pile of clothes that had slipped off the clearance rack and by the time the ambulance comes, Shelby doesn't even know if she is crying from the pain or crying over the embarrassment of destroying all of those clothes anymore._

" _I'm so sorry," she sobs to the manager of the store as the paramedics buckle her into a stretcher._

" _Oh sweetheart, don't worry about it," the woman smiles at her and squeezes her hand. She had been surprisingly kind, telling Shelby about her own three children and all of the miraculous things she would experience once her child was actually in this world. Shelby didn't have the heart to correct her._

 _She sends Shelby off with a blessing of good luck, and the only thing that stops Shelby from telling her that it is not luck that she will need, but a miracle, is another contraction ripping through her midsection that makes her bite her lip so hard she tastes blood._

 _The hospital offers to call her parents for her, but she has them call the Berry men instead._

 _Shelby is not due for another week and a half, which means that they will not be expecting this phone call. In fact, the three of them had scheduled a rehearsal for what they would do when Shelby_ did _go into labor for tomorrow evening. So much for that._

 _It takes Hiram and LeRoy over three hours to get to the hospital because they are in Cleveland buying items for the nursery. They have been doing this for months, traveling between cities for the best materials, the safest, the most in style…_

 _Shelby thought the practice strange, but it gave her a sense of comfort that her daughter would be safe with the Berry men, who cared about everything from the thread count of the baby blanket to the plush animals with the most hypo-allergenic materials. Shelby meanwhile, didn't know the difference._

 _It turns out that the Berry men's distance hardly matters because her daughter decides - despite making a grand introduction for herself - that she will take her sweet time coming into this world._

 _Five hours pass and then six and Shelby is pacing around her room trying to move this process along. When the contractions do come, she has learned to just grimace and contract her jaw until the cords stand out against her neck before releasing the breath in a barely-audible groan. She is just starting to think that she is getting used to them when hour eight comes and goes and she experiences one that is so strong, it knocks her flat on her backside._

 _After that, the anesthesiologist comes in to put in an epidural. With it in place, Shelby is no longer free to wander about the room, but that is a small price to pay for the relief that it gives her. She is halfway to proposing to the man that had placed it for her when her OB peers her head out from between her legs and tells her that it is time to push._

 _She is alone in the room when her daughter finally starts to push her way into this world._

 _Hiram and LeRoy had left, both squeamish and persistent on the fact that the product of the miracle of birth is best appreciated when you don't have to consider the process._

 _As another contraction tears down Shelby's spine, she considers the fact that in the next life, she would like to be born a gay man so that maybe she can have that option, too._

 _Over an hour after her doctor has told her to start pushing, her progress is minimal, and Shelby is starting to wonder how much more of this she can take._

 _Sweat is pouring from her head, she can barely catch her breath and the pain throughout her entire body is stabbing and relentless._

 _As her body arcs once again and her face shifts from a shade of red to bright purple, the nurse reminds her that this is meant to be a marathon, not a sprint. Frankly, the encouragement makes Shelby want to slap the woman because a reminder of how long she has been at this is the last thing that she needs right now._

 _What seems like a hundred people are sitting in between her legs waiting for her daughter to make her appearance, but the truth is that Shelby would invite the entire town of Lima out here if it meant getting this thing out of her faster._

 _The thought has just barely crossed her mind when she feels a final burst of pressure and a rush of emptiness that is accompanied by the wail of a newborn. Immediately, she takes her previous sentiments back, because now, her daughter's clock had started to move, and their time together was officially limited._

" _It's a girl, Ms. Corcoran," somebody shouts over their shoulder, but Shelby already knew that detail._

 _What she really wanted to know is whether or not her baby had ten fingers and ten toes, if, when the doctors pressed their stethoscopes to her chest, her heart sounded healthy and strong and bigger than her mother's and her father's put together._

 _What she really wanted to know is if she will continue to be this innocent, blank slate that she was born as, or if the reality of who she was genetically programmed to be would catch up to her in due time._

 _Shelby closes her eyes and tries desperately not to cry while she reminds herself that Hiram and LeRoy would make their own reality for her daughter. She just wishes that that would be as easy for her as well._

" _Please let me hold her," Shelby hears herself ask even though she told herself she wouldn't._

 _She knew going into this that a stipulation of the contract that she signed stated that Shelby was not to touch her. After the girl was born, she was to be brought straight to the Berrys. To keep her as safe as possible, things had to move quickly. There was simply no time._

 _She hadn't thought anything of the provision when she had agreed to it, but that was before she heard the sound of her daughter's cries, it was before she got a good look at the wrinkled face and flailing fists. It was before she knew how much the love would warp her, become a part of her, make her feel like every inch of distance placed between her and her daughter would strike her like a fissure cracking through the center of the Earth._

" _I'm sorry…" the nurse that is holding her daughter shakes her head. She sounds sympathetic, but Shelby notices that she holds the tiny infant closer to her chest as she says this, like she is afraid that Shelby is going to try to physically fight her to get what she is asking for._

 _She has half a mind to do it, but she just sits, frozen._

" _Please, let me hold her just once!" Shelby begs, but this time, the nurse ignores her. She pushes through the crowd of people gathered inside of the room, trying to escape quickly as to lesson the blow, but it is not quick enough._

 _Shelby catches a tuft of dark brown hair, matted to the baby's scalp. Then, the little girl turns her tiny face towards her mother and looks at her with those muddled eyes, glistening with the silver nitrate the doctors had put inside of them after she was born. She silences for a moment, considering Shelby like she somehow knows that this is the same woman she had just spent nine months living inside of._

 _Shelby feels a gasp of wonderment escape from the back of her throat and then, just as quickly, the nurse pivots and she is gone, and that gasp becomes a strangled sob as, in one breath, Shelby loses her child and then herself._

* * *

Shelby tells Rachel everything. From the day that she had met Peter to the day that Rachel was born, Shelby tells Rachel her own story with a brutal honesty.

Shelby knows that she had warned Quinn to be quick at the vending machines, but she gets so absorbed in the truth that she is telling Rachel, that she doesn't even notice how long the blonde is gone until she hears Quinn come back and realizes that she has made it through her entire story.

She hears Quinn fidget with her hotel key on the other side of the door and stares at Rachel, waiting for a reaction, but Rachel is determinedly silent, wide-eyed and frozen. When the door opens, and Quinn and her dog emerge in the doorway, Shelby realizes that it might be for the best to let the truth sit with Rachel for a couple of days before hounding her for an answer.

"Is everything okay?" Quinn calls, freezing in the doorway. She feels the swell of the unexpected tension immediately and can't help but wonder what she had missed in her brief absence. Even the dog seems to notice that something is wrong, because he lets out a little whimper and takes a seat at Quinn's feet, waiting for the blonde to tell him what to do next.

"It will be," Shelby assures her, and although Rachel is staring ahead quietly, looking like she had just seen a ghost, Quinn somehow believes Shelby. "Goodnight girls. I'll see you in the morning, okay?"

Shelby stands up slowly and walks towards the door. She is not sure that it is the right thing, to leave Rachel after dumping everything she just had on top of her, but clearly the girl is shell-shocked, and Shelby has a feeling that she would want to talk to Quinn about it before she brought up her feelings with her estranged mother, despite what they had just been through together, or maybe even because of it.

"What was that about?" Quinn asks just as soon as the door closes behind Shelby. Rachel only shrugs as Quinn secures the deadbolt and chain lock behind the woman, tucking them safely away from the world outside.

"I guess we're trying the whole mother daughter thing again."

"Nothing like almost getting killed together to bring you closer together."

Quinn smiles at her own joke, but her face falls when she remembers that it isn't a joke at all. The blonde sighs, falling into the bed next to Rachel, sitting on the edge of the mattress and shoving a Twizzler into her mouth, buying her time to come up with something to say as Rachel shrugs at her absently.

"Something like that…" the brunette breathes, and Quinn turns her eyes down at Rachel, concerned. She offers the girl one of her Twizzlers from the over-priced bag from the vending machine, but Rachel does not even acknowledge the offer and Quinn feels the worry lines on her face deepen.

"Are you okay?" she asks Rachel. She knows that she had already asked Rachel that a million times tonight, but Rachel still looks like a zombie, and Quinn is starting to get worried.

"I don't know," Rachel admits. "I just keep thinking about everything that happened tonight, how I could have stopped it."

"You couldn't have stopped it, Rachel."

"I could have by just leaving Peter alone!" Rachel insists, her voice rising and her back stiffening. Startled, the lab scurries to his feet and runs to hide on the other side of the bed. Rachel sinks like she is only now remembering where she is. She stares at Quinn for a long time, but the blonde is certain that Rachel isn't looking for her to say anything, just to listen, so that is what she does.

"Everybody kept telling me that it was a stupid idea, and I didn't listen," she sobs, burying her face in her hands. "I always have to get my way and my answers, and now Peter is dead because of it."

"Rachel, Peter got here on his own," Quinn sighs, trying to ease the burden of guilt off of Rachel's chest, because it is starting to seep off the brunette and onto Quinn, and the blonde is starting to feel it crush her too. "He made his own choices. His story was never going to be a happy one. Besides, we all make mistakes, Rachel. Trust me, it's not just you."

Rachel looks at Quinn sadly and blinks away some of the tears. She knows that she finally has the truth that she has been searching for, and maybe even, in her own strange way, some closure, but she still feels unsettled.

"Did you really think that getting Beth back would make a difference?" Rachel asks after a lengthy silence. She watches Quinn deflate in front of her, reminding herself that it isn't Quinn that she is mad at right now, it is everybody else.

The blonde nods her head, staring down at her feet. If Peter's mistake had been the paths he walked in this life and Rachel's had been her determination to understand those paths at any cost, then Quinn's would certainly have been the plan that had almost destroyed her, Beth, Rachel, and Shelby all in one.

"At the time I did," Quinn admits. "I just felt so lonely and so isolated. I thought that nobody could possibly understand what I was going through, but that my own daughter would have to love me."

"What changed?" Rachel asks, and this time, Quinn doesn't have to think about her answer.

"You."

Rachel turns away from Quinn's words with bright red cheeks.

"Listen, I know that you're mad…" Quinn attempts to reason through her excuses when Rachel goes a long time without saying anything. The brunette's silence is making Quinn nervous. She is afraid that Rachel is still mad at her for everything that happened with Shelby and Beth, even though she was really hoping that after everything they had just been through together, Rachel would be willing to offer her a free pass.

"I'm not mad," Rachel sighs. "I mean, I was mad, but I'm not. Not anymore. We all know what we're capable of when we're desperate now."

Quinn stares hard at Rachel and waits for an explanation that doesn't come. Instead, Rachel just stares ahead, looking anywhere but at Quinn's eyes.

"Peter raped Shelby when they were in high school," Rachel finally tells Quinn. "That's how she got pregnant in the first place. That's why I was born."

Quinn's mouth falls open as she turns to look at Rachel. She doesn't know what to say. What can you say to somebody who just found out that the entire reason she is alive is because of something horrible?

Up until this point, Rachel Berry's life has been punctuated by sunshine and peppiness and rainbows. Her fathers had worked so hard to protect her from the badness of the world. That used to frustrate the hell out of Quinn, but now that she knew what they were actually protecting her from, she couldn't say that she blamed them.

But for poor Rachel, that only meant that the fall was harder, and from a thousand miles away, they were not here to pick up the pieces. Only she is.

"I spent all of this time hating Shelby for what she did to me," Rachel continues after a moment. "I never considered what she was going through. I never considered why it had to be the way it was. I was only ever thinking about myself. I'm a monster."

"Rachel, you're not…"

"Look at where I came from, Quinn!" the brunette roars, refusing to allow Quinn to try to make her feel better. She doesn't deserve it. After everything that she has done, she knows that she deserves to feel like crap. "If I was never born, then Shelby would probably have had her Broadway dream. Peter probably wouldn't be dead. Everybody would be a hell of a lot happier!"

"I wouldn't be," Quinn corrects Rachel. The brunette's face falls, staring at Quinn like she is trying to gauge her for the truth. "Listen, I know that Peter turned out to be a bust, but you can't go on about these what-if's from a past that you had no control over, Rachel. And besides, Shelby was a fucking bad ass tonight. Half of you might have come from Peter, but don't forget that half of you came from her, too."

Rachel takes a deep breath like she is actually considering Quinn's words. Finally, she turns her face into her hands and groans.

"I just stared at her."

"What?" Quinn prompts, confused.

"I just stared at her like an idiot when she told me and now she probably thinks that I hate her."

"She doesn't think that," Quinn shakes her head. "You've been through a lot, Rachel. She knows that this is all a lot to take in. Just talk to her."

Rachel nods her head. She knows that she is going to have to talk to Shelby at some point, but for right now, she has one opportunity to break down before it is time to put that show face back on and she is going to take it.

She falls into Quinn's arms and allows herself to be held by the blonde.

"Breathe, Rachel," Quinn begs.

"It's not fair, Quinn," Rachel only sobs in return. Her voice is choked and strained. She is not breathing, even though Quinn had just reminded her to.

"Life never is, Rach," Quinn tells her, and although it is not the optimistic approach that Rachel had been searching for, she somehow feels the words calm her.

"I'm tired, Quinn," the brunette sighs, pulling herself out of Quinn's arms. "I don't want to fight this anymore."

"Why does it always have to be a fight?"

"It's who I am," Rachel fights. "You saw what Peter was like tonight. I am literally a part of him, Quinn. My entire life is doomed to be one giant fight."

"Who you are has nothing to do with Peter."

"It has everything to do with Peter!" Rachel bellows. "You said it yourself, Quinn. I'm half him!"

Quinn rolls her eyes at Rachel's reasoning, frustrated terribly by the lack of just that. Reason.

"You didn't become any of the things that you are because of where you came from Rachel. You became them despite them. Peter has been going the wrong way since high school, probably even before that. The only person he led down that path was himself. Your dads, your _real_ dads, they chose you. Look at my parents. They can care less about me. Meanwhile, Shelby and your dads went through all of that effort to make sure you were somewhere where you would be loved."

Rachel turns over her shoulder to look at Quinn, sadly, but with a glint in her eyes like she is starting to believe Quinn.

Quinn swallows and stares back. Rachel is doing that thing again, that same thing that she had done the night before. She is staring at Quinn with a gaze so intense that the blonde is starting to feel paralyzed.

Rachel is holding onto Quinn with her eyes alone. She is holding her, pulling her in, molding her like putty in her hands.

Quinn has never met a person who puts so much thought into her expressions. She used to think that that was just part of the whole future actress thing, but now, Quinn is starting to realize that Rachel genuinely is that intense. Despite the fact that that gaze had almost gotten her killed tonight, now that her stomach is settling with the idea that it hadn't, it is really starting to turn her on.

"Can you take it away from me?" Rachel whispers, enveloping the blonde, burying her face inside of her neck. "Just for tonight?"

Quinn swallows. As much as she would like to fulfill Rachel's request, she isn't sure that it is the best idea.

"I can try," she tells Rachel timidly because she is terrified to make a promise to Rachel that she can't keep. Besides, the last time this had happened, Quinn had known right away that they weren't doing it because they loved each other. She doesn't want to make the same mistake twice.

Reading Quinn's expression, Rachel sinks a little bit.

"Maybe we should talk about something else tonight," she suggests.

"What else are we going to talk about?"

Rachel shrugs. "Tell me about yourself."

"We've literally known each other since we were seven, Rachel," Quinn rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that we _know_ each other," Rachel points out.

Quinn turns to the brunette, immediately understanding what she is talking about. Rachel might know that Quinn was an All State Cheerleader three years in a row, or that she has been counting down the days until she can move out of Lima and go to Yale, but she is certain that Rachel couldn't tell her what her favorite color is, or her mindless television preferences, or that despite the whole cheerleader thing and the fact that her family has held OSU football season tickets since before she was born, that she preferred baseball…

"I read the last chapter in a book first," Quinn tells Rachel, yielding to the brunette's request to do an icebreaker ten years after they had first met.

"Why?"

"In case I drop dead before I finish it," Quinn shrugs. "Can you imagine being left hanging for all of eternity?"

Rachel laughs shyly, turning her eyes down to look at her feet. She feels better, talking about meaningless facts about one another with Quinn rather than having to focus on everything that happened.

"When I was younger, my dads took me to New York and I heard a rumor that Barbra Streisand was staying in the penthouse suite of our hotel. I snuck away from our room and tried to sneak into the penthouse, but the elevator got stuck and I was by myself for three hours while the fire department tried to get me out. Turns out that Barbra was never staying in the hotel and to this day I won't get into an elevator."

"How old were you?"

"Three and a half."

Quinn snorts slightly with laughter at the story that is so quintessentially Rachel and begins to rub soft circles in between her shoulder blades without even realizing that she is doing it.

"I don't understand how you see this world sometimes, Rachel."

"Maybe I can show you," Rachel offers. The blonde swallows at the suggestion, suddenly nervous, but nods her head. She realizes now that this is far from like before, when their actions had been spontaneous, and emotionally fueled, and just all wrong…

"I think I would like that," Quinn tells Rachel. "Thanks."

"You don't have to thank me. It should be me thanking you for everything you've done for me tonight." Rachel smiles in a way that makes Quinn's heart flutter. Before she can think better of it, she pulls Quinn in a little bit tighter and presses a kiss to her cheek. She can literally feel the heat rising against Quinn's face as her lips linger there.

The last time, Rachel knows that she had just fallen victim to lust. This time, she knows for a fact that Quinn loves her just as much as she loves Quinn.

She wants to say this to the blonde, but mostly she just wants to kiss her again.

Like Quinn is reading her mind, the blonde decides to take things a little further. She leans in and kisses Rachel, this time not on the cheek, but full-on on the mouth.

Much to her delight, Rachel responds quickly, but allows their lips to linger only for a couple of seconds before she pulls away nervously.

"Is this okay?" Rachel asks, and Quinn nods her head.

"If it's okay with you," she tells Rachel.

"It is," Rachel assures her. After everything that happened today, Rachel would have thought for sure that she would have ended this day either dead or locked away in a creepy basement. She takes a moment to stare down at Quinn, amazed that this is her best-case scenario.

"Are you sure?" Quinn notes Rachel's hesitation and misinterprets it. Rachel meanwhile, hasn't even realized how much her eyes have fallen until Quinn lifts one hand to cup Rachel's cheek and rubs her thumb there.

"We don't have to do this, Rachel," Quinn assures her, but Rachel shakes her head adamantly.

"I want to," she tells Quinn, but it is hardly the same tone as it had been last night and somehow, Quinn believes her.

Rachel grabs onto Quinn's shoulders and pulls her down onto the bed. Quinn hardly puts up a fight and lets gravity take them until they are lying on their sides

Quinn pulls Rachel into her until her narrow back is pressed deep inside of the blonde's chest. Rachel tries to swallow her nerves. She isn't a prude. She had been dating Finn on and off for years, and although she had never let him get very far with her, it isn't like she is committed to not letting people touch her. Mostly, she just feels that when it comes to experience, everybody else already has her beat. It's embarrassing.

"You're shaking," Quinn whispers, pressing her forehead into the curve of Rachel's neck.

The brunette nods, but she is at a sudden loss for words. She tries to force herself to focus on Quinn, who simulates a deep breath, moving her chest in a rhythm with Rachel's, trying to convince her to follow her lead.

Quinn takes her time and doesn't say anything. She isn't trying to pressure Rachel. If she wants to sit just like this for the rest of the night, then so be it. If she wants to pull away and sleep on the floor, or in Shelby's room, or outside in the car for all she cared, then Quinn would respect that.

But Rachel never pulls away and instead, Quinn braces onto her and holds her so close that their hearts start to blend into a unison rhythm.

The silence is peaceful, like the kind that people climb to the tops of mountains to experience. Quinn lets the feeling consume her. She buries her face into the crown of Rachel's head and lets the brunette's scent overwhelm her. It is not the kiss that Rachel is used to from Quinn, but she exhales dreamily, like she loves it just as much.

Rachel turns her head over her shoulder to look at Quinn, whose lips are red and swollen from earlier and brings a hand up to cup her cheek.

Quinn leans willingly into her palm, understanding that she has relinquished complete control to Rachel.

The last time they had been here, Quinn was afraid that Rachel had fallen victim to her own emotions. This time, Quinn knows that Rachel loves her. She had been frantic and heated one minute and now, Quinn has blinked, and she has become gentle and coaxing. Quinn has never appreciated the love and unexpectedness of Rachel Berry more. It is the gentleness in her movements, the look in her eyes that screams that this is pure love.

It is the way that Quinn closes her eyes and listens to the silence that builds between their heavy breathing. It is the quiet and the calm and the realization that she is not so alone in this world as she thought she had been.

And that reminder, she needed it. God, how she had needed it.


	17. Chapter 17

**So this is the end from me for now! I just want to thank everybody for reading. This was a quick little story that had been in my head for some time and wouldn't leave me alone until it was written, so thank you to everybody who entertained my muse! And thanks to everybody who sent me messages and reviews along the way. It means a lot! Until next time.**

* * *

 **Epilogue** **:**

The next morning when the door to their hotel room bangs open, Rachel is in such a deep sleep that she doesn't even stir.

Her head is still burrowed in the center of Quinn's chest where she had fallen asleep when Shelby comes inside to tell them to hurry up and get dressed because Rachel's fathers are here.

Quinn's face glows bright red as Shelby looks between her and her sleeping daughter. The older woman has a look in her eyes like she knows exactly what happened between the two girls last night. Her motherly instincts are on high alert. They do not let her down. Quinn is just glad that her and Rachel were fully dressed…

Quinn wakes Rachel up slowly after Shelby leaves to spare the girl the embarrassment. The brunette groans in response to being woken up. She stretches against Quinn, her eyes blinking slowly open.

"Rachel, you have to wake up," Quinn tells her as Rachel attempts to press her head deeper into the center of the blonde's chest and go back to sleep.

"Five more minutes," Rachel mumbles. She still feels like she is dreaming. At least, she wants to be dreaming. The real world has become too surreal for her and somehow, she only feels safe when Quinn is around anymore.

"Your dads are here, Rachel," Quinn tells her and this time, Rachel gets the message loud and clear.

She rolls off of Quinn and both girls feel a rush of cold air that makes them feel like they had just been thrust into the arctic naked.

"Can we wait?" Rachel asks. It sounds more like a plea.

"I don't think so," Quinn shakes her head. "We already traumatized Shelby. Don't want to make it any worse."

"Shelby saw us?" Rachel gasps, suddenly wide awake as she shoots up inside of the bed.

Quinn cringes and nods.

"Under normal circumstances, I would say that she owes you one," Quinn tells her. "But I think that you used up literally every bit of that card last night."

"I can't believe my mother caught us in bed."

Rachel's cheeks are so red that they match Quinn's old Cheerios uniform. She falls back onto the mattress with a groan, wiping her hands over her closed eyes with such a vigor that Quinn might think that she is trying to wipe out the thought entirely.

"Would you rather it be your dads?" Quinn offers.

"Ugh. Please stop talking."

Quinn shrugs but agrees to keep quiet as she rolls on top of Rachel. If she isn't allowed to talk, Quinn figures she would put her mouth to better use.

She dips her head, resting her lips against Rachel's, pulling her bottom lip in between her teeth.

Despite her humiliation, Rachel still kisses Quinn back, as softly as possible, treating Quinn's mouth like it is breakable.

"I think I heard Shelby outside." Quinn can't help but tease Rachel, but she regrets it immediately when the brunette pulls away and smacks Quinn hard against the shoulder.

"Okay, I know that mine and Shelby's relationship is far from normal, but for the record, I still don't want to have a mental image of her inside of my head, or yours for that matter when we are making out."

"That's fair," Quinn smirks, and manages one more, quick kiss before Rachel squirms her way out from underneath her and stands up with a wide stretch.

She turns around and smiles once at Quinn. Despite the day that they had yesterday, Quinn still manages to help. Rachel needs that. She is certain that Quinn does too. She just hopes that it can last.

* * *

Rachel's fathers meet her outside in the lobby.

The second they see Rachel, they rush her. Quinn hangs back. She doesn't want to interfere. Besides, she is trying not to think about how much it hurts that Rachel has three parents here for her and she doesn't even have one. Frankly, she preferred it when the two of them were alone.

The Berry men stare at Rachel as though they are seeing a ghost.

They are relieved to see her, Rachel can tell, because they grab her tight and hug her tighter and run their hands over her hair and her face and her shoulders like they are trying to make sure that she is really okay…

Of course, it is not all teary greetings and sentiments of relief. There is a sharpness to their touches, to their words that reminds Rachel of how mad they are at her. Rachel wonders if they are trying to hurt her as much as she had hurt them. Then, Rachel remembers that that is not possible. What she had put her fathers through was unforgiving…

They have a conversation over a sub par continental breakfast.

At first, the Berry men try to skirt around the issue. They try to read Rachel, play things by ear. They try to get her to reveal what she does and doesn't know.

Rachel is quick to put an end to that. She doesn't tell her fathers her source, not trying to implement Shelby. All she does is let them know that there is no point to skirt around the obvious anymore. The only thing that had led them to was trouble. Besides, the truth is out now, and as far as Rachel is concerned, the need to be secretive had died with Peter.

"Where did you come up with the turkey baster story?" Rachel asks shyly, picking at her plate of runny eggs that she hasn't even touched.

"We did try it," her father Hiram insists. His hands are folded into his body. He is pressed tight into himself. He has looked like this since they sat down. All three of them have plates of food in front of them, but none of them have been able to stomach a bite yet. "We read a few books on the subject that insisted it was a relatively reliable method. We found a couple of women who were willing to try it, but it never stuck. We tried a few times over a period of about two years or so, but after a while, it became too much to bear. We stopped trying."

"Then Shelby came to you?" Rachel asks, attempting to piece her fathers' side of the story with Shelby's. She watches her fathers look at each other and then back at her. Simultaneously, they nod.

"We were living in a bad neighborhood in Lima Heights at the time," Hiram continues. "I was struggling to get my law firm off the ground. You know how quickly rumors spread around Lima. People were not particularly open to seeing a family lawyer who was rumored to be gay. You have to understand Rachel, there was a lot of fear about the gay community at the time. Nobody understood us. They wanted nothing to do with us. We walked into an adoption agency once and we were removed by security before we could even say a word. Then we met Shelby, and she was terrified, but for once, somebody wasn't afraid because of us, because of who we were. She was just afraid that her child was in danger. And she was willing to do anything she could to protect her. Even if that meant handing her child over to two gay men."

Rachel hangs her head, no longer able to meet her fathers' eyes, ashamed.

"Your father and I paid for the expenses out of pocket," Hiram continues. "And we agreed to put my name on the birth certificate because I was the lawyer, and we knew it would make the issue of custody less complex. We made Shelby sign the contract rescinding her parental rights and agreeing to stay away from you because we saw how much it hurt her to give you up. We were afraid that if she decided she wanted you back at any point in your life, and decided to take it to court, that the judge would hold the fact that we are an unmarried gay couple against us. We knew that any court in the state of Ohio would side with Shelby over us unless there was a legal document protecting our custody of you. We gave Shelby a lump sum to support her in New York for a year so that Peter wouldn't find her. We didn't hear from her at all until your sophomore year."

"Were you ever going to tell me?" Rachel asks, swallowing the lump that has formed inside of her throat.

"We were going to tell you when you turned sixteen," her father LeRoy interjects with a nod.

"What happened?" Rachel risks asking.

"Shelby got to you first," her father nods at her, silently asking her if she remembers what had happened the last time her and Shelby had crossed paths. Rachel nods her head. She would hardly forget that.

"She found a job in the region and insisted that it was an accident that she ran into you while you were performing at Sectionals."

Rachel shoots her head up, struck by her father's words.

"Wait, you talked to her back then?"

She glances between her two fathers, watching them frown at the understanding of yet another secret that they were hiding from her.

She had no idea that her fathers had sought out Shelby during her sophomore year. She had told her fathers that she had met Shelby, and then a couple of days later, that they had decided that it was best that they kept their distance. Her fathers had immediately doubled her frequency of therapy sessions and that was that.

Or so Rachel thought.

"Of course we talked to her, Rachel," Hiram sighs. "You came home from school one day and told us that you had met your mother. We knew that we had to find her. The three of us met and she told us that she saw you while scoping out her competition. She knew that it was you just by looking for you. Then she saw our last name in the program and it confirmed it. Fifteen years of her trying to forget about you disappeared just like that. Then when you found her and… and the way that it ended… We saw how much it hurt you. We planned on telling you on your sixteenth birthday, but by then, you were just starting to get over your first meeting with Shelby. We didn't want to re-open those wounds tenfold. We… we thought that we were protecting you. We realize now that we were wrong. We never wanted to hurt you, sweetheart. We're sorry."

Rachel nods her head slowly. Two days ago, she had been blaming her fathers for everything. Now, it is hard for her to blame them for anything at all.

"I'm sorry too," Rachel tells them, and she watches her fathers return her nod in unison, finally in a mutual understanding.

* * *

Quinn is sitting at the far end of the lobby by herself, watching Rachel talk to her dads with an intensity like she is watching a good movie.

She has a plate of food in front of her, but she hasn't touched it aside from slipping the dog laying at her feet a few slices of bacon every couple of minutes.

"It really sucks."

She hears a voice directed towards her and raises her head just in time to watch Shelby slip into the empty seat across from her.

"What sucks?" Quinn asks, trying to pretend like she doesn't know. Trying to pretend like she has not just been caught staring.

"Watching somebody else raise your kid."

Quinn's eyes flicker up to match Shelby's. For the first time, she sees the same look in Shelby's eyes that she feels every time she looks at Beth and wonders if, like Shelby, she will one day be so good at putting on that mask to convince the rest of the world that she is fine.

"You'll tell yourself over and over again that you did the right thing," Shelby continues with a sigh when Quinn says nothing. "And maybe it was, but it doesn't make it hurt any less when it's staring you in the face."

Quinn nods her head, afraid that if she says anything, she will only start to cry.

"You have a phone call, by the way."

Quinn looks up at Shelby with a cocked eyebrow.

"A phone call?" she asks. She doesn't know who would be calling her. She especially doesn't know who would be calling her from Shelby's phone, unless maybe it was the police. The thought makes Quinn's face fall fearfully.

"Apparently, you don't answer your own phone," Shelby nods, sliding her cellphone towards Quinn.

Quinn flushes. Her own phone is destroyed. The screen is shattered, and she hasn't even bothered to charge it in days. It's probably dead, but she wouldn't know the difference either way.

"And your mother didn't know how else to reach you." Shelby watches relief spread across Quinn's face at the mention of her mother. She thought that she had forgotten about her. Or she just didn't care. "She finally managed to get in touch with the Berry men. They gave her my number."

Quinn doesn't waste anymore time. She picks up Shelby's phone abruptly, trying and failing to mask the joy in her voice that there is somebody out there who cares about her like she cares about Beth, like the Berry men and Shelby care about Rachel. There is somebody out there who is worried about her, who misses her, who wants to tell her that everything is going to be okay…

"Mom?" Quinn breathes into the phone.

"Oh Quinn, thank God…" she hears her mother's voice greet her immediately. The tone is frantic and full of worry and Quinn almost feels bad for the way that it makes her heart soar.

* * *

The police give them the all clear to leave Nebraska the next day.

The Berry men had bought Rachel a ticket for the flight back, but Rachel had insisted that Quinn could not drive in her car for that long by herself so, after a lot of arguing, they had agreed to let Rachel and Quinn drive together. The only stipulations were that she had to hold onto her father Hiram's cell phone at all times to replace the one that Quinn had thrown out the window, and that Quinn only stopped the car when Shelby was accompanying them.

The Berry men assure Quinn that her mother is relying on them to ensure a safe drive, so she is hopping for no funny business and certainly no side trips. It is quite obvious that their trust in the girls is limited. Now that they know that they are safe, their worry is starting to bleed over into anger and distrust.

The drive is long and uneventful. They get home late, but Rachel's dads make her wake up early and go to school the next day anyway. The claim is that this trip had been her idea, she can deal with the consequences. Besides, she had already missed practically the entire week… She has a lot of catching up to do.

She still doesn't have a cellphone, so she can't ask Quinn if she will be in school today too. Even if she did, she doubts very much that her fathers would let her keep it after they had grounded her for - quote, unquote - _"the foreseeable future."_

She is nervous when she walks into school the next morning. She doesn't particularly want to see anybody; not the glee club, not her classmates, certainly not The Skanks. Luckily, the first person that she runs into is Quinn, which knocks a huge weight off her shoulders.

"Your dads made you come to school today too?" Quinn asks, watching the exhausted brunette slowly approach her.

"Even though we didn't get home until four a.m.," Rachel groans, tiredly plucking at the combination lock on her locker. "I'm exhausted."

"Same," Quinn nods, but when Rachel turns to her, the blonde is just smiling down at her with a silly sort of grin and Rachel can't help but notice that she doesn't look exhausted when she is looking at her.

"Did your mom let you keep the dog?" Rachel forces herself to ask, trying not to get herself worked up over Quinn in the middle of the hallway of their high school.

"I finally got her to say _maybe_ the third time I asked," Quinn shrugs. "But I think she's warming up about him."

Rachel nods and lets her face fall suddenly.

"Did you tell her about us?" she asks Quinn, picking at a loose thread in the strap of her backpack. Through the corner of her eye, she watches Quinn's smile fade. Now she notices the exhaustion.

"I didn't really know what to say," Quinn admits. "About what we are… Did you tell your dads?"

Rachel shakes her head slowly.

"Maybe we can go to the mall or out to eat later?" Quinn suggests. "We can talk about it?"

"I can't," Rachel sighs. "I'm grounded for the rest of my life."

"Oh yeah…" Quinn breathes like she had actually forgotten everything that her and Rachel had been up to this week. "Me too."

Rachel watches Quinn's face fall and feels a sudden need to reverse it. She perks herself up again and leans as close into Quinn as she dares without enticing suspicion.

"But I am doing chores around the house until I can pay my dads back for the hotel room and plane tickets," she tells the blonde. "Tonight, I get to clear out the garden for the winter, so if you want to sneak into my neighbor's backyard, I can whisper really quietly through the fence and ask you to be my girlfriend there and we can sort everything out."

Quinn smiles down at Rachel. It takes every ounce of self-control not to lean down and kiss her right here in front of everybody.

"That wouldn't work for me," she teases, and Rachel cocks an eyebrow.

"Why not?"

"Because I was totally going to ask you to be my girlfriend."

The two girls lean into each other and for a half second, almost forget their present company before they pull back at the final second, cheeks flaming red and eyes darting through the crowd trying to make sure that they haven't been spotted.

"I guess we'll work on that part later," Rachel tells Quinn shyly, pulling her hair back and averting her eyes. She finds it incredible that after everything that her and Quinn have been through together in the last few days, she is still terrified over the prospect of her own classmates finding something to use against her.

"I'm not embarrassed by you, you know," Quinn tells Rachel as if she is reading her mind, reaching down to grab onto her hands and give them a supportive squeeze.

"I'm not embarrassed by you either," Rachel assures Quinn, and she means it. She is not embarrassed for having feelings for Quinn like she does, or even afraid of coming to school every day for the rest of her senior year to a Slushee in the face. She just wants something that is all her own for a change, and why can't that something be Quinn?

"Hey Blondie. Berry."

The two jump apart from each other at the sound of their names and turn just in time to see Genesis approaching them from down the hall.

"I heard that the two of you had a little adventure." Genesis smiles slyly at the two girls in front of her, leaning up against the lockers between them.

"How did you know that?" Quinn asks, raising an eyebrow at Genesis' seemingly endless resourcefulness. The girl only shrugs.

"Little bird…" she tells the girls but reveals no more.

"Where are the rest of The Skanks?" Rachel asks. Reuniting with The Skanks is the thing that Rachel has been looking forward to the least about returning to William McKinley. And while Quinn seems convinced that giving the gang a week to cool off might save them from being jumped in the hallways, Rachel is not so sure that they will be so quick to forget their little spat. On top of that, Rachel wasn't sure how much the girls knew about the history of their little group, but if they caught word about what Quinn and Rachel had done to their founder, they would be dead for sure.

"You didn't hear?" Genesis asks, staring at the girls.

Quinn and Rachel both feel their eyebrows cocking, silently imploring Genesis to elaborate. Of course they hadn't heard. They have spent the last week cellphone-less in Nebraska. And given the speed by which news spreads across William McKinley, they both knew that they were way out of the loop.

"The Skanks got busted earlier this week," Genesis explains. "They tried to rob some liquor store in Lima Heights, but the cops were waiting for them. Then when they patted Jasmine down, they found a knife in her pocket. Boom, armed robbery. Immediate felony."

"How did they get caught?" Quinn asks. It sounds too good to be true. In the brief amount of time that Quinn had been hanging out with the Skanks, she had watched the girls steal from Lima Heights Liquors a thousand times. The man behind the counter was ancient. He could barely even remember his own name, yet alone subdue a notorious gang of girls.

"Somebody tipped the cops off," Genesis shrugs. "They knew that they were coming."

"Who tipped them off?" Quinn asks. Her eyes narrow in on Genesis. She has been suspicious that that girl has been trying to sabotage The Skanks from the inside out since she met her. Genesis however looks offended that Quinn would even suggest such a thing.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Fabray? I don't snitch."

She makes this insistence, but her eyes continue to glisten in a way that makes it so that Quinn doesn't believe her. Quinn knows that it had been her. She is also suspicious that the girl is the reason why Shelby had managed to find them so quickly in Nebraska. Considering the fact that if this is true, Genesis would have saved her life twice now, Quinn decides to let it go.

"Thanks for everything, Genesis," Quinn nods at her in a motion that the girl reciprocates before pulling herself off of the locker and turning back down the hall. That is what Quinn liked about Genesis the most. She was a straight-talker, a girl who got straight down to business and then left it at that. No loose ends, no questions, just business.

"Whatever. Just get a room next time you two are thinking about making out in the hallway," Genesis tells them, and both girls immediately feel their faces glow. "Not even The Skanks being sent to prison will out-gossip the cheerleader and the glee princess hooking up."

"We're not-" Rachel starts, but she is immediately cut off by Genesis who waves her off, silently telling her not to bother.

"Yeah," Genesis tells her, staring at her with the same all-knowing glint in her eye that Quinn had worn when Genesis had told her that she had nothing to do with the Skanks' arrest. "Whatever."

And with that, the girl is gone.

Quinn shakes her head at the girl's striking personality before turning back down to face Rachel, whose face has grown red as an apple.

"Genesis is right, you know," Quinn points out to Rachel.

"About getting a room?" Rachel raises an eyebrow at her. Quinn only shrugs, a look in her eye that Rachel isn't sure that she likes.

"I mean, I can't afford a hotel room at the moment, but at least let me give you a ride home after school," Quinn offers. "At least my windows are tinted."

This time when Rachel's cheeks flush, Quinn knows that it has nothing to do with her embarrassment.

"Sure," she nods shyly, but before she can get too caught up on the bubbling in her stomach, she spots something over Quinn's shoulder, distracting her.

Quinn flips around, following Rachel's eyes across the hallway where Shelby is pushing through the crowd of students with an extra-large coffee clutched inside of her hands.

She is dressed to perfection and made up just as well, but she still looks exhausted behind all of that.

Both girls are surprised to see her at school today. She had gotten home just as late as they had last night and didn't even have pissed off parents to punish her by forcing her to go to school on only a few hours of sleep.

Shelby spots them staring and pauses.

All three stare at each other, an unspoken bond linking them even from down the length of the hallway. Then, Shelby nods at them and they nod back, and Shelby turns down the hallway and out of sight, a million words spoken through silence.

"I'm gonna go catch up with Shelby quick, alright Quinn?" Rachel says, quickly springing into action as she rushes to shove the rest of her books into her bag. "I'll see you in class, okay?"

"And that ride?" Quinn calls after her, refusing to let Rachel forget.

Rachel turns over her shoulder, forcing a sideways smile towards Quinn in a way that the blonde knows that she has her.

Rachel waves one more time over her shoulder before turning to jog down the hall, trying to catch up with Shelby before she loses her.

She rushes around the corner and manages to catch a quick glimpse of Shelby's back just as the woman turns into the teacher's lounge.

Rachel knows that she's not allowed inside of there, but she knocks tentatively on the door before inviting herself inside anyway.

Luckily, the homeroom bell is close enough to ringing that all the teachers have retreated to their classrooms already. Shelby and Rachel are the only ones left inside.

Rachel watches Shelby's eyes dart up from a sip of her coffee upon hearing somebody else enter the room.

She looks surprised to see Rachel standing in the doorway. The girl swallows but stands her ground.

"Hi…" she chirps awkwardly. Shelby smiles at her politely and puts her coffee down against the table, giving Rachel her full attention.

"Hi Rachel."

"I can come back later if you have a class right now…" Rachel swallows, but Shelby just shakes her head.

"No, I'm free first period," she assures the girl, gesturing towards the empty seat across from her.

She watches Rachel hike her backpack higher against her shoulders before tentatively lowering herself into her seat and raises a slight eyebrow at the girl.

"Do _you_ have class right now?" she turns the question onto Rachel, her voice growing suddenly maternal like she is looking for something to add to Rachel's growing list of indiscretions for the week.

"I have study hall," Rachel lies, but is immediately overcome with guilt for it and sinks slightly in her seat. "Actually, I have Biology. I can come back later if you want me to."

Rachel finds herself scrambling suddenly to gather her things and stand. Before she can disappear, Shelby reaches over the table and latches onto her wrist, silently telling her to slow down.

"I'll write you a pass," Shelby assures her.

Rachel nods shallowly, slowly lowering herself back down into her seat.

"How's your arm?" Shelby finally asks after Rachel has taken long enough to settle back into her seat.

"Oh, it's fine," Rachel answer politely, giving her arm a small wiggle as though trying to prove a point. "I don't even feel it anymore. I just have to keep it covered for a few more days."

"And everything else?" Shelby presses. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay…" Rachel breathes, and then realizes that it is yet another lie that she has caught herself telling Shelby and she sinks again.

The truth is that as the reality of what happened to her and what happened to Shelby has more time to sink in, the worse Rachel feels about it.

In the handful of hours she had been allotted to sleep last night, she had barely managed any at all. Every time she was left alone with her thoughts, her mind went into overdrive.

The weirdest part about it, Rachel found, is that it wasn't even what happened at Darlene's house that haunted her the most, but what happened after.

"Actually, I'm not okay," Rachel corrects herself. "I keep thinking about what I said to you in that hotel room, after you told me… you know... everything. Actually, I guess it's more about what I _didn't_ say to you."

"What do you mean?" Shelby implores, cocking her head.

Rachel swallows, turning over her shoulder towards the closed teacher's lounge door, just to double check that they are truly alone.

"I just sat there," Rachel finally tells Shelby when she confirms that they are indeed alone.

Realization spreads across Shelby's face as she watches her daughter hang her head as though she has something to be ashamed about. Her features mold, heartbroken that Rachel would ever think that she owes her anything for her candor the other night.

Shelby had told Rachel the truth about the circumstances of her birth because she deserved it. She had told Rachel to give the girl some clarity after a tragedy and a very near miss, not because she wanted Rachel to bear the burden of the guilt that she had been carrying around with her for eighteen years.

"Rachel…" Shelby breathes, but she doesn't know what else to say, and before she can get anything out, Rachel is shaking her head at her.

"If I were you, I don't know what I'd do," Rachel tells her, still adamant in her refusal to look Shelby in the eye. "I don't think that I would ever be able to look at me, knowing how I came here. Is that why you left the first time?"

Shelby swallows. It is not the entire reason why she left the first time, but it is a part of it and she knows that the truth is already written too plainly inside of her face for her to effectively lie to Rachel about it.

"You have his eyes…" Shelby finally breathes after a moment. Chin still smuggled deep inside of her chest, Rachel sneaks a fleeting glance up at Shelby, trying to gauge exactly where she is trying to go with this. "I wasn't expecting that. When I saw you at Sectionals, you were so thoroughly and completely me that I didn't expect to see the pieces of him there too when I looked a little bit closer."

Rachel's head falls. She had other hopes for Shelby's answer. This one stings, despite trying to convince herself not to take it personally.

"I'm sorry I put you through all of that," Rachel apologizes, barely above a whisper, refusing to meet Shelby's eyes even after the woman reaches across the table and grabs onto her hand, squeezing tightly.

"Rachel, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for," Shelby tells her, so firmly that Rachel is practically forced to believe her. "You did absolutely nothing wrong. I'm the one that should be apologizing to you for making you shoulder my mistakes. My parents did that to me and it was awful. I always said that things would be different when I started to have kids. I guess we're just more prone to becoming our parents than I wanted to believe."

"At least you have Beth to make up for it."

Shelby takes a deep breath and squeezes Rachel's hand a little bit tighter.

"If it's okay with you, I think I would like to try to make up for it with you too."

Rachel looks up, astonished by the offer. For a moment, she is at a loss for words.

"Peter had a big heart, Rachel, one that unfortunately he forgot to listen to somewhere down the road," Shelby nods through Rachel's silence. "You have that big heart too. And, unfortunately, like his, yours has some scars on it now. The difference is that you have something that Peter never had, something that might make all the difference."

"What?"

"A lot of people who love you no matter what," Shelby nods. "Including me."

"Really?" Rachel asks, perking. She doesn't think that she knew how badly she needed to hear her mother say those words to her until she finally heard them.

"I know that it's a lot to take in," Shelby tells the girl. "I know that it's hard to believe, but Rachel, you being born was the one bright spot when my life got turned upside down. Keeping you safe kept me going. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know what would have happened to me. I don't know what I would have done after Peter did what he did. Who knows, I could have ended up in that trailer in Nebraska with him, too afraid to stand up for myself."

Rachel nods, the benefit of the decision made by Shelby and her fathers finally starting to blend and glow in a mixture that makes her flood with gratitude.

Without what happened, Rachel's life as she knows it might not be. If one detail of her birth had gone differently, she could have ended up anywhere; growing up with Peter as a father and Shelby as little more than a shell of woman by his side, or maybe in foster care, as one of The Skanks sitting in prison right now…

Shelby would have been stuck in a relationship that made her half the person she truly was. Even now, she is still recovering, but both women are starting to learn that while terrible things might happen, those terrible things aren't what defines you. It is how you find your way home afterwards that does.

"Can I ask you something?" Rachel finally asks after a long moment.

"Sure," Shelby nods.

"Did you ever think that you couldn't love me like a normal mom?" the girl swallows, almost embarrassed to be caught asking such a personal question. "Because… because of where I came from?"

"Rachel," Shelby tells her firmly, forcing the girl to meet her eyes through her tone alone. "Not once did I ever think that. Do you hear me? I was never afraid that I wouldn't be able to love you."

"Okay…" Rachel nods through a watery smile.

"Are you sure?" Shelby cocks an eyebrow because she needs to be sure that Rachel knows this more than anything.

"I'm sure," the girl insists, wiping the dampness from underneath her eyes and like magic, any string of doubt has disappeared from her face. "Can I ask you one more thing?"

"Okay…"

"My dads wanted to know if maybe you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night."

"Your dads?" Shelby raises an eyebrow, surprised by the offer.

"And me," Rachel shrugs as though she doesn't know that this is the validation that Shelby has been looking for the entire time. "You can bring Beth. My dads moved my therapist back into our spare room, so you can meet her too. She already knows pretty much everything about you anyway. Anyway, I was thinking, I know that I'm almost eighteen anyway, but… well, maybe we can modify that contract a little bit?"

"What do you mean?"

"Stop pretending that we don't know one another…" Rachel puts the offer on the table tentatively, forcing Shelby to try to hide how excited she is to hear it.

"I'd like that," she tells Rachel, beaming. "You're sure your dads are okay with it?"

"Well…" Rachel breathes with a hint of sarcasm in her tone. "Every time you come around my therapist does have to spend a month living in the bedroom next door to me…"

It is meant to be a joke, but Shelby feels guilt flood inside of her.

"I'm sorry, Rachel…"

"Thanks," Rachel nods at her mother, cutting off the woman's apology with an unexpected response. Shelby raises an eyebrow.

"For saving my life," Rachel explains. "And for everything… Like, _everything,_ everything."

Shelby wants to say something, but she suddenly cannot find the words. In fact, the only thing that she does manage is a stiff nod.

"I should probably get to class," Rachel breathes, pushing away from the table. Her hand slides out from underneath Shelby's and the woman has to make a conscious effort not to pull her back in.

"Let me write you a note," she offers. "My excused slips are in my office."

Shelby guides Rachel out of the teacher's lounge, holding the door open for her and guiding her into the hallway, which is now completely empty with the exception of one, particular blonde who is waiting right across from the door.

"Quinn?" Rachel asks, watching the blonde stiffen upon seeing Shelby and Rachel exit the teacher's lounge together. "Why aren't you in class?"

"Biology is totally boring without you," Quinn makes the excuse.

"Can you write her a pass too?" Rachel turns over her shoulder towards Shelby. The woman evaluates the two girls carefully. She doesn't know what is going on between the two of them, but she also understands that one would have to be a fool not to see something.

The woman puts that conversation in her back pocket. This is hardly the time or place.

"Sure," she nods, guiding the girls back to her office where she makes quick work of scribbling Rachel and Quinn's name down against the excuse slip and signing it. She hands the pink slip directly to Quinn to give to her teacher, holding onto the end tight for a moment, refusing to surrender it to Quinn just yet.

"Take care of her, Quinn," she warns the blonde, who beams, enticed by a mission she knows that she can keep.

"I always do, Ms. C."

* * *

Rachel takes up Quinn on her offer to drive her home after school.

She only lives a few blocks away, but Quinn takes the long way. Even still, when she pulls up to the front of Rachel's house, she doesn't want to let the girl go. She is grounded and so is Rachel. The idea of not being able to see her again until Monday feels like a piece is being physically removed from her.

She throws her car into park and turns, staring at Rachel like she is trying to memorize every inch of her, like it's going to be two years before she gets to see her again rather than just two days.

The weather had turned at some point throughout the course of the day. What had started as a warm morning had gone cold around the edges. Quinn swallows and watches Rachel fold herself into her sweater, trying to prepare for the impending chill.

"I'm gonna miss you," the blonde finally breathes. Rachel offers her a shy smile, pretending not to be flattered. She turns her eyes away from Quinn so that the blonde cannot see her heart melting and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's only for the weekend," she reminds Quinn, and then pauses and reconsiders. "But I'm gonna miss you too."

Quinn doesn't need to hear anymore. Instead, she decides to project everything that she is feeling through touch alone. She reaches over across the center console, her hand grazing up Rachel's arm. She feels the bandage underneath the girl's sweater, covering the cut left behind from the bullet that had come inches from taking Rachel away from her before they could even really get started.

As much as Quinn tries not to think about that, the memory is still fresh. It seeps through the cracks more frequently than any of the rest from that night. She feels herself shudder despite herself.

"Are you okay?"

The motion does not go unnoticed by Rachel, whose face falls with concern. She watches Quinn shake her head from her thoughts and nods as she reminds herself to concentrate on what hadn't happened as opposed to what almost did.

"I'm just glad you're okay," Quinn tells her. Rachel beams as color flushes high into her cheeks.

"I'm glad you're okay too."

Rachel leans forward across the console and presses her lips into Quinn's. The kiss is soft and subtle and the both of them have to crane their necks painfully, but the two of them connect, and once they do, they will be hard pressed to be forced apart again.

They fit together like a puzzle, and Quinn suddenly wonders how they spent so much time forcing themselves into pieces that didn't fit without even realizing that their perfect match was standing right there the entire time.

Seconds feel like hours feel like days feel like weeks and both girls find themselves wishing that they can spend their weekend right here.

"My mom lets me out of the house to walk the dog," Quinn gasps into Rachel's mouth, filling the space between her words with short, staccato kisses. "I can walk past your house while your doing chores. We can pretend it was an accident."

"You live four miles away," Rachel reminds Quinn.

"Doesn't matter," Quinn breathes. She pulls her lips away from Rachel's, struggling to catch her breath. She presses her forehead against Rachel's. The brunette's dark eyes find Quinn's hazel ones and stay there. Quinn reaches up and weaves her fingers through Rachel's hair, smooth as silk.

"What will you tell your mom?" Rachel teases. She loves how Quinn scrutinizes her so carefully, like it's the last time she will ever see her every time. She loves how Quinn works to memorize every detail of her, like she is trying to make up for all the years she missed. She loves that Quinn still looks at her like she is seeing color for the first time despite knowing the extent of her flaws better than anybody.

"I'll tell her the truth," Quinn whispers.

"And what is that?"

"That you're a bad influence on me, Berry." Quinn offers Rachel a sideways smile. She forces herself to pull away from Rachel, afraid that if she doesn't do it now, she never will, and falls back into her seat.

"We both know that the only bad influence is you," Rachel teases, and with a dramatic flip of her hair, she helps herself out of Quinn's car, wriggling her hips purposefully, just to leave Quinn writhing.

"That's really how you're going to leave me?" Quinn rolls down her window and shouts after Rachel. The brunette has gotten her so fired up that she doesn't even notice the cold.

"It will give you something to think about during your four mile walk tomorrow," Rachel winks as she turns around and hangs inside of the open window. Quinn smiles slyly. Maybe Rachel is right. Maybe it really is her that is the bad influence…

"Hey, I'm just thinking that my dog needs exercise," Quinn lies, that mischievous smile curled prominently against her lips.

She can tell that Rachel has something smart to say in return, but whatever that something is, it is swallowed by the front door of Rachel's house opening. Both girls turn around just in time to watch as Rachel's father Hiram steps out onto the porch, his face stern and his arms crossed as though to remind Rachel that he has not forgotten the fact that she is grounded.

Rachel feels color flood high up her face. She wonders how long her father had been standing at the front watching her and Quinn…

"Say goodnight, Rachel," he calls to her. Somehow, the girls face gets even redder as she turns back to Quinn.

"Goodnight," Rachel breathes to the blonde. She reaches out through the open window towards Quinn and Quinn reaches back. Their fingers graze quickly along each other's and then Rachel's back is turned towards Quinn and she is jogging up the path to her house.

Her father intercepts her, guiding her inside of the house. Rachel has just enough time to turn around inside of the doorway and offer Quinn one last wave goodbye before she is swallowed by the belly of her house, the door closing behind her.

Quinn sits on the curb for just a moment longer. She feels the smile lingering against her face and knows she probably looks like an idiot, but she doesn't care. She is proud of Rachel's resilience. She is proud of her resilience. Crossing over the edge had nearly destroyed her over the summer. She had been forced to do it again much too soon, but was finding that while it is hard, it is much easier without having to pretend that you are content to be doing it on your own.

She forces her eyes back onto the road, shifting her car into gear before pulling away from Rachel's house. She is already counting the minutes until she can return and realizes that she can get used to this feeling of being excited for the prospect of tomorrow.


End file.
